The Secret Lives of Neil Josten
by AelysAlthea
Summary: POST-CANON: Neil's life has been a mystery for so long that it was all but expected that a sliver of unexpectedness would reveal itself to the Foxes on occasion. Sometimes it wasn't as unexpected as it perhaps should have been - but sometimes it most definitely was.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Nicky's Taste in Music**

"… have no idea how my shit gets so all over the place," Nicky said into his phone, shaking his head as he shuffled along Matt's TV cabinet. Tipping his head sideways, he frowned before plucking another DVD case from the collection. His. He was pretty sure it was his. "Seriously, I don't even remember bringing this in here."

"Are you sure it's even yours?" A yawn chased the end of Erik's words, a testimony to the time difference between them. Eyeing the case in his hand – yes, it was definitely his – Nicky considered offering to hang up once more only to disregard the idea. Erik was a morning person, but he always clung to wakefulness to speak to Nicky after he'd finished his classes for the day.

"I'm sure," Nicky said. Shaking his head, he muttered more to himself than to Erik, "hell, Matt, keep tabs on your own junk and your paws off mine."

He wasn't really annoyed. More correctly, it had been a long day that was only just coming to a close, and Nicky was thoroughly sick and tired of packing. Or, even more correctly, tired of searching for his far-flung possessions. He'd never realised just how deeply he embedded himself in Fox Tower until the end of term and the inevitable clean-up came around.

It would be worth it, though. Catching a plane the next day, for the first time in years entirely by himself – it would be worth putting in the hours. In spite of his disgruntlement for Matt's oblivious thievery, Nicky couldn't help but smile at the very thought.

Piling the stack of retrieved DVD cases into his arms, Nicky rose from his knees to weave his way back across Matt and Aaron's room. What would be his room next year too if Wymack's idea took root. It would be strange not living in the same suite as Andrew, strange to the point of disconcerting, but Nicky was kind of excited for it. Andrew was better these days than he'd been on his meds, but even so, it made the prospect of yet another year at university that much more appealing.

"How's it coming along?" Erik asked sleepily as Nicky paused alongside the kitchen. Was that his mug? How the fuck had his mug gotten into Matt's room? Probably by way of Aaron, but still. Dammit, Matt. If he wasn't so nice to look at, Nicky might even resent him for it sometimes.

"I've got two suitcases packed already," Nicky said, juggling his DVDs as he struggled to hook the handle of the mug onto his pinkie finger. Fucking hell, it was dirty too. Damn Aaron too for being a slob.

"So you're nearly done?"

"Are you kidding me? I'm not even halfway yet. I've literally spent the last hour in Matt and Aaron's rooms."

Erik laughed, a dopey little sound that Nicky could picture perfectly coupled with an equally dopey smile and heavy eyes. A smile planted itself on his own face at the sound of another stifled yawn. "You and your baggage."

"Yeah, well, at least I'm leaving a good chunk of it behind this time." Nicky's smile became a little rueful. Baggage in the form of twin cousins wasn't exactly easy to manage, but it would still feel strange after working them into each and every one of his plans for years. Nicky thought he could almost miss the struggle. He wouldn't have changed anything, not for the world, but…

"You'll miss them?"

Nicky shrugged, turning towards the door. "Maybe. Definitely more than they'll miss me."

"It's only for a few months over the summer."

"I know."

"You'll call them?"

Nicky snorted. "Only to make sure Andrew hasn't killed anyone –"

Nicky cut himself off as the door to the suite swung open in his face. Jerking back a step, he lowered his phone to his shoulder, covering the mouthpiece as Matt nearly barrelled through him. "Jesus," he exclaimed, louder than even he would admit was necessary. "Slow down much?"

Matt ground to a halt before him. He had a bundle of balled-up washing in his arms, apparently deeming a laundry basket far too logical for his purposes. When a shirt slipped from his pile to the floor, his muted pout bespoke abrupt regret of his oversight.

"Dammit," Matt cursed under his breath. "I nearly made it the whole way, too." He glanced up at Nicky, gaze darting across Nicky's own armful. "You're still in here?"

Nicky shrugged. "Apparently you've stolen a whole bunch of my stuff," he said.

"Probably Aaron bringing it in," Matt said.

"Sure, sure, blame Aaron. Where is he, anyway?"

"How should I know?" Matt peered over the top of his clothes pile, eyeing his dropped shirt as he tried and failing to pick it up with his toes. "Probably with Katelyn or something."

Nicky smirked. "As if they won't be spending practically every second together over the summer."

"Yeah, well." Matt shrugged himself before finally managing to flip the shirt onto a finger with a wobbling manoeuvre and proceeding to skirt around Nicky. Like everyone else, he too had been packing too when Nicky had intruded early that. The girls' room was like a thoroughfare for the movement of bodies through the doorway and down to the cars, and Nicky was adding it next to his list. His own wasn't much better, even if just about everyone – Foxes included – were more than aware that Andrew didn't appreciate being walked in on. Last checked, he'd neglected his own packing and had been attempting to contract emphysema double time by working his way through a packet of cigarettes at the window.

Nicky didn't – and couldn't – object to Andrew smoking, but he'd admit that it would be a bonus of living in a different room to him in the coming year.

Passing down the hallway, Nicky managed to prop his phone up against his ear once more. "Are you still there?" he asked by way of a greeting return, slipping back into German as he did so. "Did you fall to sleep on me?"

"Mm," Erik mumbled in reply. "Not quite."

"Not 'not quite'. You're practically sleep talking." Nicky smiled. "Go to sleep. I'll call you later."

"No," Erik replied, the stubborn ass that he was. "I said I'd stay awake to make sure you got everything packed. You're not done yet."

"Yeah, well, maybe I – wait, hold on a sec."

"No, you can't convince me otherwise."

"No, Erik, I –"

"You're terrible at keeping yourself motivated for this kind of thing. Don't deny it, you always –"

"Shut up for a second, babe." Frozen mid-step, Nicky barely heard Erik's surprised grunt. His eyes were fixed instead upon the door into his own rooms, his ears pricked attentively. What was…?

"What is it?" Erik asked, curiosity dispelling some of the sleepiness of in his voice.

"I'm not…" Nicky trailed off as the voice rose from within once more. "Hey, I'll call you back in a second, 'kay?"

"What? What are you –? Nicky, what's –?"

"In a sec." Hanging up, Nicky tucked his phone into his armload and edged towards the doorway into Andrew's room. When he was close enough, he peered almost tentatively around the doorframe.

The room was as much of a mess as everyone else's, a battlefield of discarded clothes, possessions strewn across beanbags and every available surface, and trip hazards in the form of forgotten socks, shoes, and bags half filled. Kevin was nowhere in sight, likely still lost in the bedroom flipping through forgotten notes from the year exactly as Nicky had left him, but Andrew and Neil were in the main room. Andrew was still at the window, the stump of a cigarette between his fingers and legs extended across the desk, while Neil…

"What the hell?" Nicky whispered, mostly to himself but also hoping just a little that Andrew might answer him.

Andrew didn't seem to hear. Neither did Neil for that matter, though that was likely because he had an earbud in his ear. The iPod Nicky had demanded he be introduced to only a week ago, courtesy of Allison's bank account after they'd simultaneously unearthed the horror of Neil's lack of musical awareness, had been forced into his hands with the express command to use it well. Nicky was rather proud of the selection of tracks he'd chosen to clutter the memory bank with. He'd filled it to practically overflowing, too.

Neil was bemused, then exasperated, then proceeded to use the iPod as little as humanely possible. That was until Nicky stuffed an earbud into his ear with his own fingers and scrolled to a tune.

"Listen," he'd said. "And learn. Jesus, this is what people do in their down-time, Neil. That, or watch movies, which you still suck at doing."

"I'm fine without -"

"Say you're fine again and I'm going to have to hit you. Accept your fate quietly, child. If nothing else, you can use it when you go for a run or something."

Apparently it hadn't been as much of an outlandish idea as Neil's answering flat stare had suggested, for he did just that. Nicky was nothing if not proud; he'd always felt just a little bit gypped that Matt, for all of his admittedly skewed taste in viewing, had been able to infect Neil's movie-virgin mind before him. At least Nicky was getting a foot in the door in the music department.

He just hadn't expected that Neil had more of an ear for music than he could have anticipated. A voice for it, too.

"_Those three words,"_ Neil all but mumbled, the words just loud enough to carry the tune of the song, _"are said too much…"_

It was… quiet. Calm. A little detached yet unexpectedly lilting. Neil trailed in and out of truly singing, murmuring words as he flicked through the distraction of whatever he was doing. Nicky wasn't even sure what it was; something that involved papers, shuffling some while crumpling others. It didn't really matter, because Nicky didn't care. He didn't care one bit, because –

_"… __would you lie with me and just forget the world_…" Neil sang, the gentle rise and fall of his voice vague as he held out a paper and frowned at it before tossing it onto the pile beside him.

_Neil can sing?_ Nicky shot a glance towards Andrew where he sat, still gazing out the window. At Nicky's wordless, barely audible bid for attention, or maybe feeling his affixed attention, glanced towards him with hooded eyes. Unblinking, he didn't say a word but raised a finger and pointed it at Nicky as nothing if not warning. The meaning couldn't be clearer:

_Don't say a word._

Nicky didn't understand. He didn't really know why, how, or when Neil had started to sing, absentmindedly disregarding a watching world or perhaps oblivious to his own singing it entirely with the tune playing in his ear. How he'd been able to hide it for so long was even more frustrating. Nicky always seemed to stumble across such nuggets of gold when it came to Neil. That he could sing and Nicky was only just finding out now? It was far from satisfying but rather only served to make him wonder what else Neil had overlooked in telling them.

Edging into the room, Nicky lowered his stack of DVDs to the floor. He took a step towards Neil, opened his mouth to ask, then flinched as a pen bounced off his cheek.

Hissing, Nicky shot Andrew a frown. It slid off Andrew's blank-faced stare like water from a duck's back. His only comment was to flick his finger in Nicky's direction once more much as he'd flicked the pen, an even more pointed demand that required verbal instruction even less than his previous one had.

Nicky pouted. He glanced at Neil again where he was sitting, slumped in a beanbag and singing to himself as he worked his way through his papers. He shot another look at Andrew, met Andrew's flat stare, then gave a huff before backing through the door he'd just stepped through. He couldn't quite withhold an abrupt grin, however, as he all but bumped into Allison striding down the hallway in the direction of the girls' room.

"Watch it," Allison said without heat, striding past him.

Nicky barely heard her. Sparing a glance into his rooms, lingering just a moment to catch a final chime of Neil's poetic murmur, he eased the door closed behind him. "Allison," he hissed darting after her and flapping a hand at her in a grasp for immediate and absolutely necessary attention. "Oi, Allison, guess what? You're not gonna believe this…"

* * *

Neil was sure he'd seen this page before. Hadn't he already gotten rid of it? He thought he had. Maybe not. Maybe he should just – no, he'd keep that one. Just in case. The urge to toss anything that didn't have immediate value was an instinct that he'd had for as long as he could remember, a part-and-parcel of having to carry everything he owned in a single bag. It wasn't like that anymore, and he wouldn't. Especially not after Kevin's severe talking-to.

"Don't toss out anything you might use next year," he'd said, reaching into the bin that Neil had just discarded his notes into. "This is valuable study material. It could save your academic career if you take a follow-up unit."

"I'll just write more if I need to," Neil had replied.

"No," Kevin had barked, almost angry in his condescension. "Don't make more work for yourself than you need to. It'll cut into your practice time, and we both know that's unacceptable."

Kevin had dumped the disorderly stack in his hands and all but forced Neil into a beanbag to 'sort through it properly' before disappearing into his room with his own school notes to do was the same. Scowling after him, Neil had begrudgingly followed suit. He considered it more than a little unfair that Andrew wasn't forced to do the same, but then, Andrew probably didn't need to. He more than likely didn't even take notes at all.

Winding an earbud into his ear, Neil flicked the iPod Nicky had given him onto the first song he glanced at. He didn't know much music, but Nicky was apparently attempting to remedy that perceived inadequacy. What had been an affront at first had turned into something not so bad; it wasn't a distraction as it could have been, and even proved to be comfortable accompaniment sometimes. Even better when Neil could focus on tune and lyrics to the abandonment of unproductive thoughts. Provided he was still aware enough of his surroundings, it was almost pleasant.

Listening was easy. Listening and learning was easy, and the words of the song he'd absently picked rose to the fore on his tongue before Neil could think to withhold them. It was just like picking up a language, really: listen, repeat in his mind, and mimic. It didn't even take conscious awareness to do it.

_Almost like with Mom_, Neil thought distractedly as he frowned at another page of notes. He was sure if he'd seen that one already too. Was he going through his 'to keep' pile? But no, he surely would have tossed that one, wouldn't he? Why did he need to keep repeated columns of Spanish nouns? Words were easy to remember. _Mom never pulled me up for singing along in the car, either, even though she got pissed about so many other things. I never thought to ask why, but…_

The tug of the earbud from his ear had Neil pausing in his note-shuffling. Glancing to his side where he hadn't even noticed Andrew lower himself to into a crouch beside, he cocked his head. Andrew ignored him in favour of flicking through Neil's iPod, the stunted end of a cigarette balanced between the fingers of his scrolling hand. Neil dropped an elbow onto his knee, watching and waiting. Maybe he shouldn't listen to the music so loudly if he didn't even notice when someone approached him. He'd thought that leaving one ear free was enough, but apparently not.

"Did you want it?" Neil asked, though he already knew the answer. He'd asked before when Andrew had done just the same thing and received the same answer.

Andrew didn't quite shake his head, but he glanced up at Neil and met his gaze in a clearer answer as he handed the iPod back to him. Neil shrugged, accepted it, and pressed the earbud back into his ear. He turned back to his notes, began the arduous task of flicking once more, and listened with half an ear to the opening notes of the song Andrew had chosen. A cover, he noticed, but still distinct.

_The Sound of Silence _was ironically fitting as Andrew's choice. Oddly enough, he didn't complain when Neil sang either.

* * *

A/N: Thank you so much for reading! This is a little bit of a series I've got going, so I'll be looking to update again soon. Please leave a review if you have a second or too! I'd love to know your thoughts :D  
Also, just for anyone who is interested, the cover of The Sound of Silence by Disturbed is 100% what I was listening to writing this chapter. I'd definitely recommend checking it out. It's beautiful.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Matt's Family Drama**

Summer break was fun. Usually. When it came to spending time with his mom, Matt would always attempt to make the most of his limited time away from college and the court. Which was why, when the whole of his mom's family showed up for dinner the second night of his return home, he plastered a smile upon his lips and put on a friendly face even for those relatives that were less than ideal company.

It was hard. Christ, it could be hard. Especially when Matt had his friends in tow.

"Uncle Jo!" Matt wrapped his uncle in an embrace slapping his back as soon as he stepped through the door. The smile he wore when he stepped back was as genuine as it got for family gatherings, and not only because time and distance really did make the heart grow fonder. "It feels like I haven't seen you in years."

"You pretty much haven't," Jo replied, drawing away from Matt enough to beam up at him. "Reckon you've grown a good foot taller since I last saw you."

Matt grinned. "Still growing. I've got a bet to win, haven't I?"

Jo chuckled, clapping his shoulder again. "That you do. I take it you haven't outgrown Hamish yet, then?"

Matt glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the back room. Laughter and clatter, the pervasive sounds of bodies in motion and jostling with merriment, emanated through the doorway. It would be fit to bursting by now, despite the immense size of his mother's house, and Matt anticipated there were still family members to come. He didn't see his cousin Aimee just yet, and she rarely missed a gathering.

"He's got an inch on me still," Matt said, turning back to Jo. "Not long, though. Promise."

"Too right you will. I've got a hundred riding on you." Matt laughed as Jo winked before skirting around him and striding into the house. Like most of Matt's family, he was a burly man, tall in his own right and with heavy, rolling steps that announced his presence even before he stepped through the living room doorway. Cries of welcome lassoed him and dragged him from sight.

"He looks like you as well."

Turning from the hallway, Matt glanced down at his side. Like a silent sceptre, Neil had appeared between Matt and the stairwell he'd just descended, one hand resting on the bannister and a finger tapping rhythmically. There weren't many ticks that he let himself show, but Mat had picked up on a few over the time he'd known him. Discomfort radiated from him like emoted words.

"Sorry about all this," Matt said, his smile morphing into an apologetic wince. "I really didn't know they were all going to be here."

Neil glanced up at him. He met Matt's stare blankly for a moment before frowning. "Matt, we're your guests here."

"Yeah, I know, exactly –"

"We just appreciate the beds. Don't apologise when you're doing us a favour anyway."

"Well…" Matt trailed off, his gaze drifting up the stairs to the indoor balcony where Andrew had positioned himself. With his arms folded atop the bannister, standing just in sight and gazing down upon the empty foyer below him, he looked almost like a presiding gargoyle. An expressionless yet somehow demonstrably disgruntled gargoyle that likely couldn't even see Matt's family but internally glared at them nonetheless.

A week ago, just as they'd been leaving campus for the summer break, Matt had offered his house to the two of them as a stopover. He hadn't known where Neil and Andrew were headed – no one knew – but raised the suggestion nonetheless. If it had been Andrew's choice, Matt doubted they would have taken him up on the offer, but Neil had replied with a glance in Andrew's direction.

"That would be great," he'd said, eyeing Andrew in silent conversation they seemed to hold so well and so often. "We won't stay for long."

"Stay as long as you'd like," Matt had replied. "Dan's not going to be around for the first week anyway, so Mom's got nothing but spare beds."

"Thanks." Neil had met Matt's gaze with a slight smile. "We won't stay for long."

Matt hadn't needed to ask out what Neil meant by his words. Not why he'd repeated them with just a little emphasis, and why it was necessary. They were likely more for Andrew's benefit than for Matt; even if Andrew didn't protest, Matt had little doubt that he'd rather choose his own lodgings.

It was ludicrous, however, to think that they would book a hotel for a night or two rather than use one of the surplus of Matt's extra rooms on their brief stop in New York. Ludicrous – or it would have been without consideration of the plans Matt's mom had in place. In retrospect, he considered that Andrew was right in his reservations. He wasn't much of a people person, after all.

"I'm just… I feel bad, I guess. For making you guys put up with the family." Matt scrubbed a hand through his hair, glancing towards the back room again as it ejected another outburst of laughter. "They'll be out on the porch with the barbeque in a bit, though. Out of your hair and everything." He turned back to Neil, smiling apologetically. "You're more than welcome to come join everyone if you'd like, but no pressure."

Neil met his gaze once more. His slight smile didn't waver, but there was something in the way he shrugged that told Matt he wouldn't take him up on his offer. "Thanks. Maybe later."

Matt nodded as Neil turned back to the stairs, ascending them with rapid steps two at a time. "Sure. I'll let you know when dinner's on?"

"Thanks," Neil called over his shoulder before disappearing, and Matt felt his shoulders slump a little. Well. No surprises there. He did feel bad, felt responsible for all but forcing Neil and Andrew into the upper, distant corners of the house, regardless of how expansive those corners were. Neil did about as well at social gatherings as Andrew did with people in general; there was no denying he'd driven them into discomfort, even if he had good intentions.

Scrubbing his head again, Matt released a heavy sigh. He loved his family for the most part, but they could certainly be rowdy. They were especially so with a belly-full of alcohol and good food. Even Matt found them a little too much sometimes. Maybe he should just save some dinner for the two of them, take it up to them later?

Nodding to himself, Matt slid the thought aside to be addressed later. One step at a time, and only what he could do about it himself. Sure, it was an awkward situation, but nothing disastrous could happen, could it? Not with Matt's mom in charge and her almost protective consideration of Andrew after the Columbia incident two years before.

For the most part, Matt managed to push Neil and Andrew from mind for the rest of the evening. Managed, and for the most part actually enjoyed his family's company, some of which he really hadn't seen in years. His mom handed him the tongs and thus duty of the barbeque, and he revelled in the superiority complex that came along with being the 'cooker of the meat'. By the time dusk fell, with a beer or two to ease his discomfort, Matt had almost forgotten his concerns for his friends.

Until his second-cousin spoke up, that was. His cousin who, if Matt were being perfectly honest with himself, he'd never been particularly fond of in the first place. Paul was a real bastard when he was in his drinks.

"You keeping clean, then, Matty?" he called across the length of the porch.

Drunkenness had begun to sink its teeth into the entire table, but not nearly enough that the words didn't carry into every pair of ears and dampen the conversation. Not entirely, but it was enough that Matt was made all too aware of the eyes that darted his way and the slowing of moving lips. For a split second, a childish part of Matt cringed and sought his mother with a glance, and that part cringed just a little further when he caught sight of her through the kitchen window with a handful of other cousins, swathed in steam and laughing as she dished up a plate.

"Paul," Paul's wife Jess said quietly, a hand reaching towards him. "Not tonight."

Matt swallowed as Paul shot a passing glance at her before returning his attention to Matt. His cheeks were slightly flushed, an indication of how much he'd drunk if his words weren't enough. Matt squeezed the tongs and took an involuntary step towards the porch doors.

"I'm just askin'," Paul said, slouching back in his seat. "Can't help but keep an eye out, you know. Not when you're in this line of word."

Scowls bounced across the table, even as Matt's cousins, aunts, and uncles attempted to play it cool. To act as though it wasn't happening. To pretend as though they didn't hear, just as they always did and always had. It wasn't for shame that they held their tongues and averted their gazes, Matt knew. He didn't want their focus, so they didn't give it. Paul, though – Paul, who had been an officer for longer than Matt had been alive – had never quite picked up on the cues. Or maybe he simply ignored them.

"I'm doing fine," Matt said. His tongue was a little thick, but he managed to force the words out nonetheless. "Thanks for asking."

"That right?" Paul squinted. He eyed Matt up and down, and across the table, over the heads of those pretending not to listen but hushed nonetheless, Matt could feel the harsh judgment that he'd always felt from his cousin. "Care if I check, then?"

"Paul," Jess hissed, the sharpness of her tone undermined by the ruddy embarrassment colouring her cheeks. "Please. That's enough."

"Oh, come on, I'm just asking. And he doesn't mind. Knows I'm just doing my job." Paul smiled humourlessy around his beer as he took another sip. "Right, Matty?"

Matt's throat convulsed as he attempted to swallow again. "I…" he began, then faltered. His family might not feel it, and for the most part he didn't either, but before Paul's scrutiny he felt the echoes of shame rising to the fore. "I'm not –"

"Right, Matty?"

"I…"

"You wouldn't lie to me now, would you?"

"He's been clean for years. Surely you know that."

Matt blinked. Snapping his gaze down to his side, he almost flinched at Neil's sudden appearance. At any other time he might have asked how the fuck he did that, why after a year of friendship be still managed to scare the fuck out of him sometimes, but not then. Speaking the words Matt's mom did so often, Neil hardly looked in the mood to reply.

For a moment, Matt was distracted. Just for a moment, he forgot about his cousin seated across the table. He forgot about Jess, rigid in her seat and hand squeezing Paul's arm in silent plea. Eyeing Neil, it was impossible not to be a little cowed by the very sight of him.

Andrew was scary. At Neil's side, blank-faced composure and predatory lounge to his posture, Andrew really was scary. But Neil? Maybe it was because Matt was never properly scared of him like he was of Andrew, but there was something about the way Neil seemed to flick a switch. Something about the way his eyes would harden until they seemed to freeze everything in his line of sight. The way he stood, short but somehow taller even that Matt, and utterly capable of striking down his opponent whoever they may be. Andrew might be the lazing tiger of the two of them, but Neil was a coiled snake far too ready to strike.

Matt wasn't scared for himself. Not ever when it came to Neil. But when he shot a glance at Paul, he was almost fearful for his cousin.

"Um," was all he managed to get out before Paul replied.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked, before immediately disregarding his own question. "I wasn't asking you now, was I? I'm talking to Matt –"

"Who clearly doesn't want to speak to you," Andrew said in a bored drone, arms folding casually over his chest. If a tiger could fold its arms…

Paul leaned forwards in his seat, half rising. "I wasn't talking to you, either," he began, but didn't manage more because Neil –

Neil struck.

"You're a police officer, aren't you?" His eyebrow twitched, lips thinning slightly. "You can tell, you know, by the way you hold yourself. It's the air of entitlement; you practically reek of it. While I'm sure everyone at the table appreciates your fine work in ensuring that the law is upheld at a family dinner party, there are some boundaries that I'm fairly sure most would acknowledge should be left uncrossed. The doorway is only so big to let your inflated head pass through when you leave without someone having to pop it for you."

Conversation froze. Silence met his words. Matt glanced at Paul, at Neil, at Paul again, and noted distractedly that Jess too was just as speechless. For Paul, his mouth was open, lips hanging loosely and eyes blown wide as though stunned. It was, however, only a momentarily hindrance.

Lurching to his feet, Paul slammed his beer bottle onto the table. "Who the fuck are you to speak to me like that?" he said, and Matt couldn't help but wince. "Who the fuck do you think you are?"

"Pigs," Andrew muttered, almost too quietly to hear. "Always so full of hot air. So easy to provoke."

Paul visibly swelled, and Matt wasn't the only one to wince this time. "You," he said, stabbing a finger at what could have been Andrew or Neil. "You have no right to interrupt when I'm – when I'm talking to Matt here –"

"To your cousin Matt, you mean?" Neil interrupted. Cocking his head, Matt almost shrivelled at the sheer weight of his stare at Paul. He didn't know how his cousin didn't wither in place. "The same cousin who you surely have frequent enough access to information about and would surely know that he's got a suitable support network that helped him out of the situation you're accusing him of right now."

"You -"

"Your cousin, who has been clean for years, has been nothing but a commendable student and Class I athlete, and who wouldn't ever go so far as to make such a humiliating scene before an audience. Particularly not his own family who clearly hold a degree of trust and confidence in one another. A trust and confidence that would be surely expected between most family members – right?"

Paul's mouth opened and closed but no sound came forth. Matt couldn't have spoken himself if he'd had anything to say. He doubted anyone else could, either; the only response anyone seemed capable of besides staring was his cousin Naomi slipping from the table and flying silently in the direction of the kitchen. Matt barely saw her leave, barely thought about what it meant, because –

Because Neil smiled. Not his usual smile but one that promised disaster if he played his hand just so.

"Personally, I don't think that an officer such as yourself – you are an officer, right?" He didn't wait for Paul's confirmation this time either. "Out of everyone to discredit, your own family member that you've surely had a whole lot more to do with than your average ex-addict would be the last person on your list. Or are you a pathetic exception to the rule? What happened to you, exactly, to make you so cruelly undermining of your own commendable relatives?"

Matt couldn't breathe. The ice of Neil's words seemed to freeze the warm summer air. Turning slowly, Matt drew his gaze back to Paul where he stood, voiceless and frozen himself, his cheeks rapidly darkening and eyes bulging. From anger, drink, or a combination of the two, Matt didn't know, but he looked fit to explode.

"Now, listen here, you little fucker," he began.

"Paul! What the hell is going on?"

In the doorway, Matt's mom stood with a plate in her hands and her face a thunderstorm. Eyes wide and dark, she pinned Paul with a fearsome stare that had as many of Matt's other relatives cringing in their seats as it did Paul himself. As though he really were filled with hot air, Paul rapidly deflated into blotchy cheeks and bowed shame.

"Randy," he said. "I – Look, it's not what it looks like."

"Really?" Matt's mom snapped. "Because from what I heard, you're causing the same kind of trouble as last Thanksgiving. Tell me I'm wrong."

Paul deflated further but Matt's mom wasn't having any of his guilt. It didn't lessen her bubbling fury in the least. As Matt watched, she strode to Paul's side, dumped the heaped plate of potatoes before him, and grabbed his elbow.

"This is ridiculous," she said, hauling him to his feet. Her words were a low growl, but the utter silence of the table allowed them to carry like a shout. "Neil is absolutely right, Paul. I'll not have you asking Matt this kind of thing every single time we have a family get-together. We've spoken about this, Paul, but not again, you hear? Not again."

Paul didn't get the chance to reply, to fight Matt's mother's ultimatum, or to say even a single word. Despite his officer status, anyone could and did shrink before Randy's rage. Practically carrying him to the backdoor, Matt's mom shoved him through like a warden hustling a prisoner. The slam of the glass sliding door behind them was resounding. Matt almost expected the glass to shatter.

On the porch, no one spoke. No one seemed to breathe, let alone move. Matt could smell the ribs burning on the barbeque behind him, but he didn't turn to flip them. The tongs in his hands shook slightly from the force of his grasp and he couldn't… he couldn't really…

_It's not like I expected to be defended. I'm not ashamed of my past anymore, and everyone knows about it. It's just that this time… This time it was… _Paul's words and the horrified silence it elicited flickered in his mind and made him flinch. That it was a repeat performance didn't lessen the blow any, but when Matt thought about it? When he had a second to pause and really thing?

_Of all the corners to have a defence squad appear from, I wouldn't have expected…_

No, that wasn't right. Matt hadn't expected it, not the what or the who, but maybe he should have. Neil had always had a brutally sharp tongue, and he wielded with the readiness and surety that Andrew did his knives. Matt had simply never seen it put to such use before. Not for the benefit of Matt himself.

A glass clinked as someone set it on the table. A head turned in Matt's direction and he felt more than saw the feeble smile struggle for reassurance. Someone murmured something, a chair squeaked, and a throat was cleared. Slowly, with a handful of tentative questions to the tune of "you alright, Matt?" sent his way, normalcy attempted to re-establish itself. For the most part, anyway. Matt found he was grappling with his own return to such normalcy.

Finally, he managed to turn from the closed door, the shadow of his mother barrelling through on Paul's heels still imprinted in his mind, towards Neil. He almost flinched again at the chilling flatness in Neil's eyes, even knowing that it wasn't for him.

"Thanks," he managed, his words a little choked. "For, ah… Thanks for…"

For a moment, nothing shifted in Neil's stare. Just for a moment, however, before his eyes softened incrementally, his expression easing a little. Not into proper softness, that was, for Matt didn't think Neil could ever manage such a thing, but certainly less hard than it had been. He nodded slightly, a hand brushing against Matt's elbow in a gentleness laughable when compared to the ferocity that Matt's mother had tugged Paul into the house.

"No problem, Matt," Neil said quietly. "Any time."

Matt didn't question Neil's words because he didn't need to. His hands easing on the tongs, he nodded shortly and managed a smile before turning back to the barbeque, turning his back on his family as they grappled with sweeping the incident under the rug as they'd been doing for years. It wasn't the first time Paul had spoken up, and despite his mother's words it might not even be the last, but for the moment Matt wasn't worried. Not when Neil planted himself at his side to wait for the ribs to finish cooking like a guard dog.

Matt had never been defended in such a way before, and ashamed or not, he couldn't thank Neil enough.

* * *

"I'm beginning to think you truly enjoy putting your foot in your mouth."

Glancing up from his plate as he settled himself on the floor, Neil stared at the top of Andrew's head. "What?"

Andrew didn't look up immediately, stabbing at his dinner where he too sat on the floor of the living room. An upstairs one, and one of two on that floor because apparently money bought excessiveness as much as it did luxury. Neil didn't think he'd ever stepped into a nicer house in his whole life; even his father's house in Baltimore wasn't in the same playing field. It was unnerving.

When Andrew did look at him, it was with just his eyes as he folded a forkful into his mouth. "You," he said through his food. "You're a problem."

Shrugging, Neil glanced down to his own dinner. "I thought you already knew that. You don't have any right to act surprised."

"That was excessive even for you."

"Was it though? No one else was stepping forward, and Matt didn't deserve that." A residual flicker of cold anger threatened to resurface, and Neil struggled to shove it to the side. If his stab into the chunk of potato was a little harder than usual, though…

Another glance at Andrew found Neil the subject of his proper attention. There wasn't any accusation in Andrew's gaze, not even of the kind that he kept largely hidden from anyone. Rather, Neil considered he saw a kinship there of the kind that he rarely received from Andrew.

Maybe he had been excessive with Matt's cousin. Maybe he should have stood in silence, let Matt stand for himself, or if not Matt then one of his family members that should have already deflected the overloud pig with his overflowing superiority complex.

But no one had stepped up to the play. No one seemed even capable of speaking. It rubbed Neil the wrong way. In such a wrong way, in fact, that it was nigh impossible not to speak up.

There were few enough instances in Neil's life when he'd been capable of speaking up. Not because he hadn't anything to say or an audience ready to witness his words, but because he wasn't allowed to. At nine, he'd be scolded so severely for verbally deflecting the attack of his schoolyard bully that he couldn't look at his mother for days. At twelve, the cuff she'd given him when he'd spoken back to the idiot teacher who asked too many questions had his head ringing for the rest of the afternoon. When he was fourteen, they'd up and left the town they'd been hiding in so quickly that they'd carried little more than the clothes on their back and the ratty duffel bags that were the most important possessions either of them would ever own, and that was barely even a noteworthy scene.

Three times. In Neil's memory, there were three times he'd spoken up as a child, and each time had ended in pain, misery, or flighty fear. He knew he hadn't been supposed to speak, not for himself and not to others, but this time?

This time, it hadn't been for himself. Not for Neil or Nathaniel, but for someone more important. Neil was able to speak up because he didn't care about the consequences, but more importantly because those consequences were negligible compared to what they'd once been. So he would make a scene before Matt's family, a family who weren't ready to step in when they should. He didn't care. So he would rile up the fury of a single police officer. What of it?

It didn't matter, and while Neil didn't do it for the thanks, the way Matt had looked at him with such gratitude when his mother had appeared was worth stepping in a hundred times over.

"I've never properly been allowed to speak up when I wanted to in my life," Neil said, stirring his dinner around his plate. He shrugged. "Why the hell wouldn't I this time?"

"It's not stopped you before, regardless of whether you've felt you had permission," Andrew said. "I seem to recall a particular incident or two with a certain raven."

Neil flicked a glance up at him to find Andrew regarding his with only his eyes raised once more. "I said I wasn't allowed to. Not that I wouldn't do it regardless."

Andrew rolled his eyes. "You're a walking death wish."

Neil shrugged again. "Not anymore. What's the worst that can happen by saying what's on my mind?"

"You gain Matt's undying hero worship and eternal servitude."

Neil snorted. "That's ridiculous."

"But not untrue. Did you see how he looked at you?"

"Is that a problem?" When Andrew didn't reply, Neil popped a piece of potato into his mouth. He pursed his lips in thought as he chewed. "I don't see that there's anything wrong with standing up for him when he couldn't do it for himself. He's one of mine. It's practically in the job description."

Andrew stared at him for so long and in such immobilised silence that Neil wasn't sure he'd ever reply. When he did, it was with that returning flicker of kinship in his gaze that Neil had noticed before. "There's no job description in the first place. Just assumption."

"And protectiveness. Right?"

Andrew didn't reply, but he didn't need to. He only returned his attention back to his dinner. The way he shifted in place, however, his legs shuffling and foot inching out to butt against Neil's calf slightly, was something of a reply nonetheless.

Neil smiled again. Andrew might not have explained anything in so many words, but after everything, after realising what he felt and how it might just resemble how Andrew had felt for years… He thought he might understand him just a little more. The thought was as pleasant as the quiet satisfaction felt by supporting Matt when he needed it.

Perhaps their little stopover in New York wasn't as irrelevant as he'd thought it would be.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Dan's Academic Pursuits**

Dan was bored already. Bored when it wasn't even the end of her first class? It made for a long semester to come.

Mathematics wasn't really a choice she'd wanted to make. Even Introductory Statistics was so far out of her realm of expertise that it would be a struggle, regardless of how often Matt preached that it was "only a first-year subject". Dan wasn't a math person.

Unfortunately, that didn't mean she wouldn't take it. It would be useful, she knew, just as she'd known that Introductory Mathematics would be to her benefit in the long haul. It would. Hopefully. Surely her arduous struggle two years before couldn't be for nothing.

The first class of Statistics wasn't setting a good precedent for successive lectures, however. The lecturer was a younger man, thin and plain, unremarkable but was a remarkably boring voice which he used to make a dull subject seem even duller. He spoke at the room rather than to the students and seemed to forget for the better part of the class that he had an audience at all. That, and that the words he droned and the solutions he detailed were in perfectly legible font on the screen overhead.

There wasn't a need to read it out when Dan was fairly sure that everyone in the class could read. Almost one-hundred percent sure.

"This was a bad idea," Kelsey muttered at her side exactly fifty-four minutes into the lecture. Professor Drone-A-Lot looked to be only contemplating the prospect of wrapping up. "A really, really bad idea."

Dan nodded in heartfelt agreement. She and Kelsey weren't really friends, just as she wasn't really friends with Thomas at her other side, or Jackson another chair along. She didn't even know the girl who sat on Kelsey's other side but to recognise her as a fellow athlete. They tended to group together these days, and especially the seniors. Juggling a sports-life and college studies was nothing short of a circus act.

If Dan had her choice, however, she would have sat with one of her Foxes. Even a freshman would have been better than Kelsey the netballer or Thomas, who played - what did he play again? Hockey, was it? She couldn't remember. Unfortunately, a quick glance around the enormous, ominous, mostly full lecture hall when she'd first stepped through the doorway hadn't spotted any of her own. That in itself was strange, because Dan could have sworn she had one. A valuable one, too. Neil was reportedly good at math, or so Matt had claimed the previous year.

The professor was still droning, still dictating what was already written on the screen over his head, by the time Dan's watch ticked onto the hour. As if to the sound of a bell, motion rippled through every student. No one spoke, not a one interrupting the professor, but unspoken agreement sounded the end of class. A sidelong glance saw the boy at the end of Dan's row slink into the aisle, twisting in place to scuttle up the stairs and through the door in short order. He wasn't even the first one to leave.

"Should've picked a spot closer to the door," Thomas murmured, and Dan nodded again. A shuffle behind her signalled more escapees, and though the professor seemed to be making an attempt to wrap up the session, she didn't wait for him to properly finish. Her notes were minimal at best, and she hadn't written a word for the past twenty minutes. Scooping her bag from beneath her feet, Dan swept pens and books within and was scooting along the line of seats in Kelsey's wake before she'd even zipped it shut.

"Don't be the last one in," Kelsey's friend whispered over her shoulder, teeth flashing in a grin. "I heard from Monica that this guy sometimes tries to keep lecturing to anyone that gets caught behind if they hang around."

Kelsey gagged and Dan gave a shudder that wasn't wholly theatrical. Snickering with the rest of her not-quite friends, she hastened up the stairs in then thickening stream of escaping students - only to pause at the top. Thomas nearly ran into her from behind with a muted yelp.

"Dan," he scolded, but didn't wait for a reply before skirting around her and making through the doorway. Dan barely noticed. Hitching her bag over her shoulder, she slipped instead down the line of desks and seats along the back row, the chairs already emptied, and paused alongside the only one that still held an occupant.

"I thought I remembered seeing you'd picked statistics this semester," she said, not bothering to dampen her voice anymore. The ruckus of escapees had climbed to careless abandon, drowning out the vestiges of the professor's words. "I didn't see you come in."

Neil started slightly, snapping his attention from his notepad up towards her. He blinked owlishly for a moment, as quietly disconcerted as he always was when someone 'crept up' on him, even if he did seem to be getting better with it these days. When he realised it was only Dan, he eased immediately, shoulders releasing their tension.

"Hey," he said, sitting back in his chair and dropping his pen onto the notepad. "I came in at the last second."

"I'll say. I thought I was cutting it close and you got here after me." Dan propped herself against the desk alongside Neil's. "You're sitting with me next time, though."

Neil cocked his head. "Hm? Why?"

"Because you're good at math."

"I'm not that good at math. I just enjoy it."

"Bullshit. And that's weird."

Neil shrugged. "It's fun."

_It's scary that he's not even joking, _Dan thought with a mental roll of her eyes. Once, she probably wouldn't have been able to discern Neil's blank-faced humour from sincerity, but it was a little more apparent these days. In this instance, he was definitely being honest. "So weird," she said, shaking her head. "Come on, though, throw me a bone. I'm in my last year and could use all the help I can get."

"If you're not good at statistics then why did you pick it?" Neil asked.

"Because it'll be useful."

"I suppose. For you."

"I'll do a trade with you," Dan offered, turning against the desk to drop her elbows onto the back of the chair instead. "You're taking psych this semester, right? I'll give you my notes and even help you read my scrawl, and you can -"

Gesturing at Neil's notepad, Dan waved an indicative hand. It wasn't for lack of necessity that her words died, however. Her offer abruptly sidelined, Dan straightened and peered at Neil's paper. "What is that?"

Neil followed the line of her gaze. "What is what?"

"That." Dan pointed at a square of the page, barely post-it sized and covered in arching lines of pen. "Did you draw that?"

Neil shrugged, shoulders regaining some of their tension, but Dan barely noticed. She was more concerned with the pictures in black ink that the bleached the paper, making a mockery of the blue lines and disregarding any notes that Neil had taken above it.

It was difficult to discern just what it was that she was looking at, for it seemed a part of something larger. Like a jigsaw puzzle piece isolated from its kin, what appeared to be a landscape image in immaculate detail and various intensities of shading consumed the square piece. The outline of a tree trunk, gnarled knots at its base and twisted branches extending higher. Tufts of grass stretched from its roots, and debris surrounded its base. Foliage and stunted bushes, a shrivelled flower and a misshapen rock. Something that looked like the shadow of an animal – a fox maybe? – and something else that looked far more sinister but less discernible.

As Dan drew her gaze across the picture, she shook her head slowly. It was… unexpected, to say the least. She couldn't have withheld the wondering smile that grew on her lips if she'd tried.

"Neil, you drew this yourself?" Dan asked without really needing an answer.

"It's just doodling," Neil said.

Dan ignored that uncomfortable edge to his tone. She reached for the notepad, fingers trailing over the surface made bumpy by the footprints of the pen. "This is really good."

"What?"

"Yeah, it's - Neil, you're a really good drawer."

"Not really."

Dan shot him a glance. "Don't tell me I'm wrong. You suck at school work in everything that isn't math or, like, Spanish or whatever else you and Andrew decided to take up at the moment -"

"It's Russian, actually," Neil said.

"Whatever. What I'm saying is that I know you suck at things, but this," she tapped the picture with a finger, "does not suck."

Neil shrugged tightly again. His face bore the kind of closed blankness of discomfort that Dan knew so well of him, and the tension in his shoulders bespoke it even more. Why he should find such a thing uncomfortable Dan didn't know, but she'd learned a long time ago not to ask. It would be an unkindness when the answer could potentially dredge forth bad memories. Neil had a lot of those, and they were often sparked by the most unexpected triggers.

Straightening, sparing a last glance for the artistic spread of penmanship, Dan forced aside the urge to explore it further. "Well, whatever," she said. "It's not like it's relevant, just kind of cool. You won't be completely distracted doing drawings in every statistics class, will you? Because that would be a problem if I'm planning to mooch off of you. And if you actually want to pass."

When Neil slowly shook his head, Dan gave a short nod. "Good. That's good then." Another nod pointed towards the doors, almost vacated of fleeing students. "Let's go, then. We don't want to get trapped by Professor Mitchell, right? Apparently he has a tendency of doing things like that."

Dan didn't wait for Neil to agree. She barely waited long enough to be sure he was packing his gear away and rising to follow her. Leading the way from the lecture hall, Dan shrugged the incident aside, even if she did stick a mental pin into the reminder.

Neil had been, and likely always would be, something of an enigma. It seemed that, even without trying to hide it, he had a wealth of secrets buried just beneath the surface. Dan found herself smiling as she cast a glance over her shoulder at Neil, his chin tucked and head bowed in utter contrast to how he usually held himself on the court but nothing if not typical of what she'd seen of him in the college hallways.

Always secrets and accidental revelations. Dan doubted they'd ever stop coming, though if they were as curiously unexpected as this latest discovery was, she found she didn't mind finding them out piece by piece. Not anymore.

* * *

When Neil returned to Fox Tower that afternoon, the room was silent. Such wasn't uncommon, both when it was empty and when either of his roommates were present; more often than not Kevin would be sprawled on his bed with headphones on and oblivious to the world, or Andrew at a window deliberately ignoring anyone around him. Neil didn't care. He was just as often blotting his surroundings out himself.

Dumping his bag at his desk, he dug through its contents briefly before disregarding delicacy and upending it and tipping the contents out. As he flipped through his books, the door opened behind him and he glanced over his shoulder.

"Hey," Neil said as Andrew entered, gravitating towards his own desk to offload his shoulder bag. Its thud was surprisingly heavy given Neil knew he rarely carried books with him, though he'd never asked just what Andrew filled it with instead.

Andrew tipped his head in an acknowledging nod before turning towards the kitchen. "I'm hungry," he said.

In anyone else, Neil probably would have ignored such a comment. When it came from Andrew, there was question, offer, and suggestion wrapped up in the two simple words. Flipping through his extracted notebook, Neil followed after Andrew.

"There's mac 'n' cheese on the bottom shelf," he said.

"You don't like that," Andrew said, turning to the pantry.

Neil shrugged. He wasn't hungry anyway, and even if he hadn't a taste for the goop, Andrew liked it. "I don't care."

Andrew crouched before the shelves as Neil dropped onto his own haunches before the fridge. He rearranged the collection of magnets, crumpling a couple of brochures Kevin had stuck up, a receipt that Kevin said was important but definitely wasn't, and tore the sheet of his statistics notes from the book.

"You hid it," Andrew said behind him, shuffling through tins and boxes for the admittedly hidden box.

"Kevin would have tossed it otherwise," Neil said.

"Asshole."

"He's kicked up his game on dieting this season for some reason."

"We have diet plans already. Let him suffer alone. He shouldn't inflict his poor life choices onto others."

Neil snorted as he rearranged the fridge magnets, adding his paper to the motley collection. He could agree with Andrew's sentiment, if only in part. Without a dark cloud hanging over Kevin's head that year, he seemed to have launched himself into the life of a committed athlete with a vigour that put his previous attempts to shame. That meant monitoring every mouthful, and not only of his own meals but frustratingly those of every teammate. He'd nearly gotten his throat cut when he threatened to throw out Andrew's tub of ice-cream barely two weeks before.

Rocking back onto his heels, Neil glanced over his shoulder to where Andrew was pulling pots out of the cupboard before turning back to the mosaic on the fridge. The collection of paper pieces, torn slips in some instances and larger chunks of pen-lined paper in others, consumed most of the lower half of the fridge door, overriding what had once been cluttered with Kevin's choice of 'relevant' content in the form of pictures, newspaper clippings, and loud advertisements. In Neil's opinion, what took its place was distinctly better.

The image hadn't rhyme, reason, or intention behind it, but somehow each picture-piece contributed to the whole. What had started as an offhanded doodle, something sketched mindlessly in the boredom of a classroom, had expanded into something more. A crevasse in a tree that evolved into the entirety of that tree, had produced a branch, a root, and then the shadow of another alongside it. The arch of a hill scattered with clumps of dirt, pawprints, and grass flattened by a departed foot.

What had started as an offhanded glance over Andrew's shoulder, a simple request and a chipped magnet to hold it in place had expanded. Hours of mindless scratchings in the back of classrooms when he could have been prepping for the end of year exams, sitting in silence and barely attending to the movements of his pen, unintentional but subconsciously deliberate nonetheless. The result was an expanse of fragmented but somehow continuous depictions in lead or ink. To look at it, Neil could determine in an instant which scraps of paper and sketched images were his own and which were Andrew's. It was somehow satisfying to see them all click together.

He didn't know why Andrew drew. He didn't know if he even liked to do it or if he simply… did it.

Neil didn't know why he drew, either. He couldn't have said if he liked it, or if he was good at it as Dan had suggested at the end of their earlier class. He just… did it.

"That's the third one," Andrew said from behind Neil.

Neil cocked his head, arms folding as he glanced over the mishmash pieces of the picture they'd unintentionally made. "Third what?" he asked.

"Fox."

Neil eyed Andrew sidelong. Andrew was regarding his latest addition with his usual hooded, nonchalant gaze. It was difficult to get a read on him sometimes, still difficult even after over a year of knowing him, but Neil thought he knew. In this instance, with the beats of silence and staring, Neil thought he knew.

He shrugged. "So long as you're okay with it," he said, turning towards the cupboard to extract a pair of bowls.

"I didn't say I liked it."

"Neither did I."

"It's a little obsessive if anything."

"Yeah, well, it's typical of me. Right?" When he turned, Neil found himself the focus of Andrews attention. He stared back silently, expectantly, but Andrew only rolled his eyes, returning to his mac 'n' cheese. Neil followed behind him. "Your turn next," he said, just as he always did as an unnecessary reminder.

"Whatever," Andrew replied. "If I can be fucked. The entire pastime is growing increasingly pointless."

"So you agree it had a point at least at some time?" Andrew didn't reply but Neil shrugged anyway. "Then I guess it doesn't matter."

Andrew still didn't reply, didn't confirm, but though Neil had never partaken in the betting habits of his teammates, he would confidently wager there would be another addition before the end of the week.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Wymack's Managerial Duties**

The new Foxes were always a fuck-tonne of work to break in.

David remembered each and every Fox and their early days. Dan with her proud aggression, fierce and easily riled. Renee and her silent isolation, and Allison with her loudly petulant, overbearing attitude. Matt, when he'd been a shadow of the man he was now, and Nicky, who'd been a little better but only because he was so good at pretending. Aaron and Andrew, as opposite yet somehow alike as flint and fire, and how their own ferocity had been as explosive as Dan's. Kevin, as beaten, broken, yet desperately determined as he'd ever been.

And Neil. Neil, who had been a walking question mark from the very first step and who had remained that way ever since.

There were those before, too. Those who had been a Fox, briefly or for longer, before moving on. David remembered their faces, regarded their pictures on the wall that Dan had turned into a collage of memorabilia. He found himself staring at that wall often when he was alone, after practice and the departure of his Foxes. He stared and remembered the beginning of each and every one, and something in his chest never failed to tighten almost painfully when he considered how far each of them had come.

Unfortunately, the changes in his Class I champions weren't immediately transferred to the newest Foxes. Not their attitudes, their cohesiveness, or their fierce commitment to repeating their die-hard performance of the year before. A fuck-tonne of work? It would never not be when it came to the Palmetto State exy team. Not of David had his way.

Observing the smear of orange and white players on his court, David sighed. There was a clear division, as apparent in the arrangement of the Foxes where they stood at centre court. The handful of new recruits weren't diminutive in comparison to the long-standing team, didn't appear small and shunned, nervous and shamed. Rather, it was quite the opposite.

They were wolves. Cornered wolves ready to bite with sharp teeth at a moment's notice.

"Fucking kids," David muttered to himself as he watched and saw that, rather than return to practice after a brief pause, the tension quivered and erupted into verbal warfare. He closed his eyes, drew a heavy breath, then released it with a gush. Then, turning towards the door into the court, he strode quickly to the rescue. Of who, however, he wasn't yet sure.

At any other instance, David would have let Dan handle it. She was the captain, it was her right and duty, and she had proven herself more than capable time and again. David had never regretted his decision to plant her in the oversized seat of the leader of the Foxes, even in her first year when she'd frayed and nearly split at the seams. Dan was a fighter and clawed her way back from that edge with every ounce of her strength, and David had seen it in her the moment she'd stepped onto his team.

But it was early days, barely the first week of semester, and he didn't want to risk getting blood on his court. Not this early in the season. It would be a right mess to clean up, and he couldn't be fucked to deal with the paper work.

The clamouring of voices raised, shouts bouncing off the walls, assaulted him as soon as David stepped through the court door. It didn't dampen as he slammed it shut with a dull thud, nor when he trudged towards centre court, eyeing his players sceptically. Andrew was idling in the goals, and David exchanged a glance with him as he passed. There was lazy acknowledgement in the way he tipped his head, but David wasn't fooled. He knew how fast Andrew could move, and he would be across the court and swiping someone's head off of their shoulders in a heartbeat if he thought one of the new Foxes – or even one of the older ones – was overstepping the boundaries of his self-appointed coterie. It was another part of the reason David took the initiative to step in; Andrew hadn't had the time to feel out the recruits for himself just yet, which meant that if blood was to be spilled, it would most definitely be theirs.

At least, if Renee didn't step in first. Andrew was nonchalantly – or seemingly nonchalantly – regarding the scene playing half a court away from him, and from the opposite goals Renee was doing the same with the new goalie planted halfway between her and the rest of the players, practically twitching and clearly itched to jump into the midst of the argument. With any luck Renee might be able to reign her in, but David wouldn't bet upon it. Renee chose her battles carefully and often frugally.

A shout, louder than the preceding argument, dragged David's attention back to the cluster. Of the six new recruits, they were as much a motley crew as any six Foxes ever were. There was the quiet one, the one that skirted on the edges, the one who spoke too much and another who hissed and sparked like a spitfire with a single glance. One who actually seemed to have a grain of kindness and friendliness buried beneath their reservations that David thought would likely latch onto Renee if given the opening, too.

The one who was a real problem, however, was planted directly before Dan with his racket raised.

"This is bullshit," he said, the word a repeated shout. "I'm not going to listen to some fucked up ideas."

"You will," Dan replied sharply, "or you're getting off my court."

"Your court?" the girl behind the leading boy said, scoffing, but neither Dan nor the boy spared her a glance.

That boy – he could be a problem. Even more of a problem than Foxes usually were, and David had seen his fair share. Jack, a rolling ball of resentment and rage, stood nearly as tall as Matt and even broader across the shoulders. He dwarfed Dan, looming over her with his face twisted in a glare. Stopping a handful of feet away, David folded his arms as he eyed him. This time. Just this time he would step in. It would be - could be - necessary to avoid a hospitalisation so early in the year. Pre-season was definitely too early for an admission.

Besides, of all the people to knock senseless, David would put Dan towards the bottom of the barrel of those he'd most rather avoid. He didn't prioritise his Foxes in many areas, but this one was an exception.

"Your court?" Jack said, echoing the girl behind him as though he hadn't heard her. His own scoff was louder, almost a laugh. "You're pathetic, the lot of you. How you managed to make it so far last year is a miracle."

"A miracle that we won?" Nicky said from behind Dan, his racket draped across his shoulders and head tipped sideways as he glanced at his teammates around him. "That's some miracle, I tell you."

"Every game we won, huh?" Matt said. "Lady Luck must've been on our side."

"Or Lord Luck."

"I reckon she's a lady."

"You're biased."

"Luck is more a man's field anyway," Allison said offhandedly. "For once, I happen to agree with Nicky."

"Luck had nothing to do with it," Kevin interrupted, ignoring the thick sarcasm, or perhaps not even hearing it. He'd become particularly tunnel-visioned when it came to their success of late. "Everyone worked their arses off last year, and they're not perfect but you would see individual progress if you took the time to rewatch plays. If you didn't bother, that's just laziness on your part."

Jack, glancing away from Dan only at Kevin's words, flinched slightly. David knew that, regardless of his blatant disrespect for the Foxes, he admired Kevin and his ability just as the rest of them did. He'd seen the familiar gleam in Jack's eye the first time they'd met – resentment, deterrence, but also longing. If anything, however, Kevin's words only riled Jack up further.

"It doesn't matter if you've improved," he said. "It doesn't fucking matter that you won, or how many goals you scored."

"Even if that's the point of the game?" Aaron asked more mildly than David him usually capable of.

Jack ignored him. His racket jerked, swinging towards Dan and pointing dangerously closely to her face. David tensed but managed to restrain himself even if, as one, the Foxes took a step closer to her. Matt's expression turned stony, Allison's lip curled, and from the corner of his eye David saw Renee slip from the goals and closer to their group. He eyed them all, cast a glance to Andrew who hadn't moved an inch himself, then back to Dan. To Dan, and Neil standing silently at her side.

Which was surprising, David realised. Neil was rarely silent. David counted it as a blessing, even if he suspected it only meant Neil was winding up to explode.

"I'm not having anyone tell me what to do," Jack growled, long years of resentment backing his words and making them spoken by rote. The history of a Fox; David didn't even have to ask. "No one, you hear?"

"Then you won't play," Dan said. "Simple as that."

"You don't get to decide –"

"Actually, I do. That's the right of the captain."

"It's the fucking right of the coach –"

"The captain," Dan repeated with emphasis. "In this instance, it's the captain. And that means me. If you don't like it," Dan shrugged, "then get off my court."

Jack's lips peeled in a snarl. His racket jabbed closer to Dan's face and David could hear Matt's grumble from where he stood. "You can't tell me what to do. None of you, but especially you. You think you're above me? That you're better than me?"

"I didn't said that."

"You think you have the right to boss me around?"

"It's not bossing, it's instructing. And captaining."

"You," another jab of the racket, far too close, and this time David took a step forward himself, "don't deserve the respect of a dedicated team. Not any of them, or any other team you face off against."

Dan's eyes narrowed and steel welled forth. She understood, almost certainly, just as David did. Jack's attack wasn't for her but for something else. Something from the past and projecting onto Dan. Whether it was her specifically or someone that merely resembled her in some way wasn't apparent, but Jack had made a target of her.

"Fucking asshole," Allison muttered.

"If you're disrespecting our captain, you're disrespecting all of us," Nicky said, his smile vanished. Matt's grumble grew into a growl, barely heard but pervasive and underlying Nicky's words emphatically.

"Dan has earned her place," Renee said, appearing silently alongside Matt and placing a hand on his arm. "You're welcome to ask any one of us, but I'll wager that the outcome of your investigation would be unanimous."

Jack seethed. David could see it, could feel it, and took another step closer. He didn't like the way the kid was holding his racket, and it was still far too close to Dan's face. Especially when, shifting his gaze from the Foxes, he pinned Dan with a glare twice as fierce as before.

"Got them wrapped around your little finger, have you?" he said through grit teeth. "Fucking hookers. Makes me sick."

Tension rose sharply and snapped. Dan's head tilted and her face smoothed. Growls and mutters not only from Matt escalated, and more than one Fox shifted in preparatory motion. Not before Jack jabbed his racket again, however. Jabbed it directly and far too close, and David took a striding step forward, reached instinctively, and –

The crunch of a racket striking padding, then the muscle beneath, froze him in place. Not quite so resolutely as the second strike that landed heavy and harder than the first. David jerked, reared backwards slightly, and so did each of the Foxes. The only one to properly move was Dan as she staggered a skipping step backwards out of the line of fire. Dan and Jack, that was.

Although, crumpled to the ground as he was, Jack's moving wasn't with quite the same reflexive retreat as Dan's was. A fractured groan managed to push past his lips, but that was all as he struggled for breath.

Standing above him, face a blank mask and racket held with the loose confidence of a gunman slinging his rifle over his shoulder, Neil regarded him. He hadn't spoken, hadn't shifted even a hair's breadth to suggest he'd been coiled with such readiness, but it had been there. There and gone again with two swings of a racket to the belly and, as Jack hunched in upon himself, to the back with his own weight bearing him down. The crack hadn't been from the racket, and David knew he would have to have Jack checked out in case of serious injury, but…

But he was grateful. Just a little bit. Jack's aim for the head shot would have been far deadlier.

"You suddenly forget how to speak, Josten?" David asked, stepping to Dan's side and shooting Neil a glare. Grateful or not, Jack looked like he still hadn't managed a full breath yet.

Neil glanced up at him with so little cowing that David might as well have not bothered speaking at all. "He needed some sense knocked into him."

"So you gave him a goddamn beating?" David shook his head. The suffocating strike to the stomach… He'd seen that before in quite different circumstances. "Of all the people to beat sense into someone, I'd have thought you'd be the last out of this lot. Doesn't seem your style."

Neil only shrugged. "He went for Dan."

"I was handling it, Neil," Dan said, though the touch of a smile on her lips was grateful.

"I know you were," Neil said. "At least you were handling what he was saying. I knew I didn't need to say anything. But if he tried to hit you? Or anyone?" Neil shifted his gaze to Jack, then to the rest of the new recruits shuffling backwards with incremental steps. "It's not like I'm just going to stand here and let his beat the shit out of people."

"So you beat him to it?" David asked. Neil only blinked at him and David sighed, raising his gaze to the heavens in a silent prayer to no one. Shaking his head, he took a step towards where Jack was still crumpled and gasping and grabbed his elbow to haul him to his feet. "Try to ease off a little next time, would you? It would be a shit-fest if I had to explain getting another replacement so early in the season."

Neil shrugged again, and David's sigh this time was resigned. Shooting Neil a glare, he encompassed the Foxes in a jerking nod of his head before turning back towards the doors. "Get your asses back into gear, you lot. Dan, reign them in."

To the sound of Dan's barking orders, David turned and all but dragged Jack from the court. As he passed Andrew's goals, he spared him a glance. "You're a bad influence on each other."

"I didn't tell him to do anything," Andrew aside, rocking on his heels as he leant against the goal post.

"I know," David said. "The fact that he did it anyway is what worries me."

Andrew didn't reply until David reached the doors, muttering to Jack to pick his feet up. "He stepped in when he needed to. Don't complain when you know it was the right time."

David didn't glance over his shoulder, and not because he was pretending to ignore Andrew. At least in a small part of him, he knew that it really had been the right time. Just in time, in fact. Maybe the nature of Neil putting his foot down hadn't been quite right, and maybe Dan might have been able to salvage the moment if she'd managed to duck out of the way in time, but –

But really. Really, David knew it was right. The right time, if not quite the right execution. His Foxes were and likely always would be a mess, unconventional in the extreme, so it was only natural to assume unconventional management techniques. David just hadn't foreseen quite yet that Neil would be stepping up to lend him a hand in that management.

Vice-Captain? He was certainly taking the role by the reigns, and David couldn't say he was necessarily sad to see it.

* * *

Nicky was still grinning when they stepped off the court that evening. Or grinning again, perhaps, for when the fierce fight of an exy game had passed, humanity settled upon the players once more to replace the single-minded focus. Neil had never been fond of that return to reality, and even less when it seemed to reawaken illogical enthusiasm.

"Good game, good game," Nicky said as they trickled into the men's locker room. "And after someone's performance in particular?"

Neil didn't look his way as he made for his locker, though he knew Nicky was eyeing him specifically. He began stripping off his gear with practised motions.

"What was that?" Matt asked, pausing in his own undressing to turn towards Nicky.

"Him," Nicky replied, and Neil caught him nodding his way from the corner of his eye. "I'm talking about our very own knight in shining armour here. Watch out, Matt, or Dan's going to replace you."

Neil could feel Matt's gaze on him as he packed his gear into his locker. It held a different sort of weight to that of the rest of the room – to Nicky with his smirk, Aaron's bored disregard. and the curious if wary stares of the freshman. Kevin radiated an unspoken chiding of his "foolish behaviour" that "would get you red carded in a game so don't do it when there's refs to see". Andrew's gaze spoke silent words for Neil's ears alone, and Neil could feel them whispering in his ear.

Scooping his towel and a change of clothes into his arms, Neil turned towards where Matt had planted himself beside him. An elbow propped on the locker, his other hand scrubbing absently at his sweat-lathered brow, he studied Neil as though he couldn't get a read on him. Neil watched him, waited, and would have left the silence untouched if Matt hadn't finally worked out his thoughts a second before Neil turned for the showers.

"Dan doesn't like people to fight her battles for her," he said, more curious than reprimanding. "She's always said that."

Neil shrugged. "I know. Which is why I didn't."

"So hitting Jack was…?"

"That was a different fight entirely." Neil stamped down on the flicker of rage that threatened to well within him again, hot and furious. "Dan's job is to lead everyone. The rest of us knock sense into the idiots who can't be led."

A slow smile spread across Matt's face. He shook his head, turning to his locker and beginning to pack his own gear away. "You surprise me sometimes, you know? Everyone always says you're all bark and no bite –"

"Who says that, exactly?" Nicky asked as he passed them for the showers. He shot Neil a wink. "I bet Neil's got a killer bite on him."

Both Neil and Matt ignored him. "I guess I'm just surprised that you'd go on the offensive in that kind of way. Especially towards a teammate, even if it is a rookie."

"You're the one who taught me how to punch," Neil said. "Why're you surprised that I'd hit someone?"

"To punch," Matt said, emphasising his words with a deliberately slow close of his locker door. "_Punch_. You practically sliced Jack in half with your racket."

Neil couldn't help himself. He glanced over his shoulder to where Andrew was picking through his own locker, fiddling with something out of sight that was for his eyes alone. He often waited for the rest of them to file into the showers before doing so himself. Neil had never asked why; he simply noticed.

"I guess I just thought retaliating like that would have been your last option," Matt said, recalling Neil's attention. "You always said how you – you know, how you always left a situation before it got bad enough that you have to act, so I thought…"

He trailed off with an awkward shrug, the kind he still did when any mention of Neil's past arose. Neil opened his mouth to reply, then paused. Matt was right in his assumption. Neil's entire life had been one of running, of ducking and dodging, of throwing himself from the line of fire to evade rather than return the attack. It was what he'd told his friends, what they knew of him –

But it wasn't quite right, was it? There was a limit, a point that could be reached and pushed to, when running wasn't just fleeing the scene. When it involved jerking to a stop and turning to lash out like an injured dog protecting its weaker side before darting away once more. Neil was only too familiar with the feeling of reaching that point. He didn't ever want to experience it again, even though the urge to run until it was forced upon him still arose sometimes.

Or it used to. Maybe that urge was fading. Neil wasn't sure when it had started, but upon considering it, he supposed it might be. Was it when Coach had made him vice-captain, and it became the responsibility of the position? When they'd won championships and he'd embraced what was his, theirs, his teams, and understood he would protect it with his life? When his father had been killed, when he'd realised he'd rather fight than lose his family, when they'd been threatened – Andrew, Nicky, Kevin, each in their own way – and he wouldn't, couldn't, stand on the side lines and let it happen anymore?

Neil wasn't sure, but something had changed. Something that made him pull the trigger when he'd once hesitated even to protect himself and his mother.

"He punched Riko," Kevin said as he passed them. He shot Neil another chiding glance that Neil ignored, even though he knew Kevin had long ago accepted Riko deserved every hit he'd taken. "At the end-of-season event last year. Surely you remember."

"Oh man, do I," Matt said with a grin. He butted a fist into Neil's shoulder. "One of the best moments of my life, that was. I don't think I've ever been so happy to see someone decked."

"When the situation calls for it, I'm not going to hold my punches," Neil said.

"Yeah, I get that impression from you."

Chuckling to himself, Matt followed after Kevin into the showers. Neil paused for a moment, considering his own words and solidifying them as a certainty, before making after them. Only to pause again as Andrew stepped alongside him. Turning sidelong, he met Andrew's gaze with a silent question.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The thundering downpour from the showers was the only interruption. Finally, however, Andrew spoke. "He's going to target you. Fools like him don't take a beating lying down."

Neil considered that. He considered it just as he'd considered the very likely possibility of such resentment arising in the split second before he'd swung his racket to protect Dan. After a moment, he shrugged. "So what? I'll push him back as many times as it takes for him to learn he can't step over the lines we've drawn."

Andrew raised a finger in Neil's face shaking it sharply. "Don't," he said in his usual quiet, flat tone, "get yourself killed." He held Neil's gaze for a long moment before making for the showers.

Neil watched him go. After a moment, shaking his head, he followed after him. Don't get killed? Of course he wouldn't. He had far too much to live for now, and a threat like a volatile freshman with an inflated head wasn't going to get in his way.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: Allison's Specific Skillset**

The winter banquet was a celebration of peacock strutting and puffed chests. Allison knew it, just as every other member of her team did. Even the more oblivious freshmen were aware of the foolish posturing; it was apparent by the dragging of feet and the moaning of their requisite attendance at a stadium a flight and extended bus trip away from Palmetto State.

That didn't mean that Allison didn't revel in it, though. She would damn-well make the most of it, and she'd look fucking fabulous as she did. And, if she had any say in the matter, her team would look just as on-point.

Which was why, as their motley crew ambled one by one out of the change rooms with suit and tie or fitted dresses pervading, Allison ran a calculating eye over the lot of them. Some, like the twins, weren't worth her time, for any demand wouldn't elicit anything but a glare and a potential loss of limb on her part. The freshmen, though, were easier meat, and she'd already made short work of fixing up her own sub's mess of a hairstyle and sent another pair back to the bathroom to redo their own poor attempts.

"Nicky, what the fuck?" Allison said as Nicky emerged into the hallway in a waft of cologne and colours so bright that they were surely identifiable from a satellite. Nicky, the fucker, only grinned, and Allison rolled her eyes. Another lost cause. As she turned from him in a fit of disgust, it was to see Dan and Matt wearing twin smirks like the cheeky, judge-y power couple that they were.

"I don't want to hear it," Allison said, folding her arms stoutly.

Matt held up both hands. "Hey, I'm not saying anything."

"But I am," Dan said. Her smirk became a grin. "Good to know you're picking up the slack."

Allison scowled. "I don't have a choice. I swear, it's worse this year than last."

"Except that last year you didn't bother with correcting your perceived mistakes," Renee said, coming up behind Allison and bumping her hip with her own. Allison didn't bother with running a glance over her to be sure of her refinement; Renee had more than enough class. "You didn't have as much pride in our team as you do this year. It's nice to see."

Allison clicked her tongue, tightening the fold of her arms as she turned towards Renee. Opening her mouth to reply, she paused as she caught sight of Neil and Kevin stepping from the men's change room, locked in muted conversation. Kevin was experienced enough in bathing in the spotlight to know how to dress with a modicum of decency, but Neil?

For a moment, Allison could only frown and purse her lips. Maybe she shouldn't… except that in this case, unlike with the monsters, maybe she could.

Snapping on a heel, Allison strode towards them and, before they'd more than stopped and glanced her way, she caught Neil by the elbow and tugged him in the direction of the women's change rooms. She ignored the glance Andrew shot their way – it was usually better to simply not engage – and didn't slow for Neil's startled query.

"What's wrong?" he asked, shaking himself loose as Allison stalked towards the mirrors. "Allison, what -?"

"We're making a change this year, Neil," she said, scooting around him to shoo him further into the empty room. Perfume hung in the air in a cloying cloud of jumbled fragrances that wasn't entirely unpleasant, but Neil nonetheless scrunched his nose as she nudged him through it. "That change starts with you."

"What about me?" Neil asked, eyeing her warily over his shoulder.

Standing behind him, peering at their reflection in the mirror above the sinks, Allison planted her hands on his shoulders. She studied his visage for a moment, flicked a quick glance down the more than sufficient suit he wore, then returned to studying his face. As was typical of him, as had been typical for a long time, Neil rarely gave himself the benefit of looking at his own reflection. A shame, really; despite his reluctance to engage in any kind of hairstyling or painted touch-ups, and despite the scars that were only just beginning to fade on his cheeks, he was a damn good looking kid.

"You're not making the most of what you've got," Allison said, digging her fingers briefly into his shoulders. "It's embarrassing to be seen with someone so negligent of their own appearance."

"You don't have to be seen with me," Neil pointed out. "You can sit at the other end of the table or something."

"I'd still be guilty by association. When you don't take care of your appearance for the sake of appearances, it reflects on the team, Neil. I'm not having that. Not anymore."

Neil frowned, and Allison could see in his eyes that he wasn't moved. "You're overthinking things. People don't care about that kind of thing."

Allison shook her head. "See, that's where you're wrong. You don't care because you've never cared what you look like. Or, more specifically, you've never cared if people aren't wowed by you. Right?"

It wasn't quite accurate, but Allison didn't say what both of them already knew – that Neil hadn't the time, energy, or care to play to the whims of fast-fashion and social posturing that every other child and teenager had engaged in or at least been aware of since the first day they stepped onto school grounds. Allison didn't pity Neil, wouldn't do him such a disservice, but she'd been lenient. Until now.

"You can care to care a little more now," she said, raising her hands to his head and plucking a strand of his hair in silent request. It was a little wiry, the ends still a deadened by the distinctive texture of hair dye. "Consider it a part of your job description now."

Neil's face twisted. It was a complicated expression that Allison couldn't quite read and was only emphasised by the way he tipped his head out of her reach, letting the long curl of his bangs fall across his face. "I play exy. That's the job description."

"You really are an idiot if you actually think that," Allison muttered, reaching for him again. "Hold still for a second. Come on, let me work my magic. I'll only work with the foundations you've got. I'm not changing anything about you innately. We don't have time for that."

"Allison," Neil began.

"Neil." Allison arched an eyebrow and Neil's lips thinned. He was unimpressed personified, but Allison didn't care. Or at least she didn't care enough to stop her efforts. "Look, I'll cut you a deal. Let me fix you up and if you really don't like what I do you can rearrange it back into the mess you usually have. Fair?" When no reply met her words, she rolled her eyes. "If you're going to be a public figure you may as well get used to people prodding you. Consider it me helping to ease you into it."

Neil's expression didn't shift at her words. The tightness that had settled in his shoulders remained too. And yet, in spite of that, he didn't retreat further and didn't openly protest, so Allison took it for a win. She quickly got to work.

It didn't take long. Neil really did have a good foundation to work off, and if Allison had more time and products at her disposal than a comb and minimal make-up, she knew she could really make something of him. Certainly something worthy of a professional athlete in the throes of glamour. She hadn't wasn't the time or the resources though, so she plucked through Neil's hair, flicked and tucked it, tweaking the strands of hair until they sat just right.

"You should put product in this," Allison murmured, more to herself than to Neil. "You've probably destroyed it with all the colour that's been put through it. You should go to a hairdresser or something."

"I cut it myself," Neil said quietly.

Allison paused. "What? Really?"

"Is that so hard to imagine?"

"I guess not." Slowly, she began picking up her work once more. Maybe it wasn't so unexpected that Neil would cut his own hair – Renee had been doing her own too for years – but she somehow hadn't seen it coming. "Have you ever fucked it up before?"

Neil made a neutral sound. "It's good enough to pass."

"Good enough to pass. Good enough isn't really good enough though, you know."

Allison trailed off as she fiddled, and Neil didn't reply. Allison didn't expect him to. What more was there to say? She knew she and Neil held vastly different opinions about public image, even if she was realistic enough to acknowledge that they were both gifted with exceptional basics. It didn't dampen her flicker of frustration, however. It was almost as though no one had ever prevailed upon Neil the benefits of aesthetic attraction, or the satisfaction and confidence it could instil in a person. Most likely they hadn't.

Muttering to herself, Allison continued her work. It was hard to stop but after a minute or two she was lowering her hands and taking a step back, admiring her handiwork with a tilt of her head. Allison couldn't help but smile as she gestured to the mirror for Neil to behold himself. The hair, a touch of colour added to his face, a minor adjustment to the set of his suit and a flick of his shoulders to nudge him into a slightly different posture – it was the little things that could make the biggest difference.

"See?" she said as Neil reluctantly turned to his reflection. "Better, right?"

Unimpressed still remained forefront. Allison could see it, and she could see that it wasn't going to waver. Even so, it was with only a hint of disappointment that she watched Neil take a step closer to the mirror, take a hand to his hair, and pause for only a moment to glance at her as though asking permission. When Allison sighed and rolled her eyes, he immediately set about redressing himself. That disappointment faded a little as she watched with more than a little fascination as Neil work his own magic.

Time. She's always considered it to be a product of time, necessity, and lack of care that had Neil dressed in rags and faded colours, his hair outgrown and posture tipped in just such a way as to make him seem slightly smaller, slightly reserved, just a little less inviting to the average passer-by. It made sense with his history; without the care and money, even she would be hard pressed to maintain optimal presentation.

As she watched, however, Allison realised she had been wrong. Was still a little bit wrong even, though understanding slowly dawned. Neil didn't not care – he simply cared enough to channel his efforts in the opposite direction.

Every lock of hair created an effect, hid a feature or distracted from his face. Chin tipped down, eyes lowered and diverted with it, and shoulders slightly raised added to the impression. Even how he adjusted his tie just so, the settled weight of his jacket slightly too, bespoke deliberate manipulation that could have been a careless oversight.

But it was practiced. It was specific. Allison watched Neil fix himself into his version of 'comfortable and practical' that so vastly contrasted to her own and yet had served its purpose in just the same way: it was what Neil had and perhaps even still did need. It was what grounded him and gave him confidence just as a pair of killer shoes and skin-tight dress bolstered Allison's own.

It might have been strange to consider Neil actively trying to slide beneath the radar to the point that he would adjust his appearance for it, especially understanding him as Allison did. He was nothing if not blunt, vicious on the court, and uncaring of what others truly thought of him enough to all but spit in their faces. And yet somehow it just… wasn't. Even if he shed his reserved persona entirely when on the court, or with the rest of the Foxes, or even in the offhanded interview that Wymack allowed him, it wasn't really all that unexpected at all. If anything it somehow fit, and Allison abruptly lost any desire to attempt to readjust what she'd similarly adjusted in her other teammates that night already.

When Neil glanced back at her, challenge in his eyes as though he expected her to descend upon him once more, Allison pursed her lips. She studied him in silence for a moment before clicking her tongue. "Alright, you're good. I'll give you that."

Neil frowned. "What?"

With a roll of her eyes, Allison shook her head and turned from the change rooms. "The most stupid part is that I almost don't know if you do it deliberately," she said, and stalked from the room. As she did, however, she couldn't help but shoot a glance over her shoulder towards Neil and consider him in a faintly different light.

In the year and a half since she'd first met him, Allison's opinion of Neil had changed drastically. Maybe she shouldn't be surprised that it was still changing.

* * *

"What did Allison want?" Kevin said as Neil fell into step alongside him.

Neil only shrugged. Really, after all of her fussing, he still didn't quite know himself. "Nothing."

"Then what took so long?" Kevin cast a glance over the heads of their teammates as they descended the hallway towards the court, peering into the stadium that already thrummed with noise. "We're practically the last team to arrive."

"Calm down, Kevin, before you pop a hernia," Nicky said, all but bouncing in step as he hastened past them. He winked at Neil as he did so. "Besides, they weren't even the last ones out of the change rooms. Coach took longer. Fucking unbelievable, I'll tell you."

"Quite your nattering up the back there," Wymack shot over his shoulder with a pointed glare in Nicky's direction. Nicky only grinned and Wymack's grunt disregarded further attempts at quelling him. "I've said it before and I'll say it again, you lot. Keep it clean tonight."

"Hey, we've got no beef with anyone here anymore," Dan said, striding alongside Wymack. "No more than every other team has with each other. There won't be a fuss this year, Coach. I'll make sure of it."

Wymack grunted again. "I can't say I'm particularly reassured," he said, but didn't expand further.

Neil's attention was drawn back to Kevin as a hand swiped before his face, catching his bangs and flipping them aside. "You need to do something about this," Kevin said. "Get it cut. It's not presentable."

Neil scowled. First Allison and now Kevin? Why did they feel the need to kick up their own personal fuss that evening? It wasn't like he had anything to prove; everyone already knew what he looked like and dressing up was… uncomfortable.

"I like it how it is," Neil muttered.

"It looks sloppy," Kevin said.

"So?"

"So, it's not professional."

"What does a hairstyle have to do with professionalism? It has absolutely no bearing on how I play on the court."

"You're not just a player on a court now," Kevin said as they stepped out onto the exy court itself, the sounds and wash of colours and people flooding over them. "Your game doesn't stop with the buzzer."

Allison had said much the same thing minutes before, but for some reason she'd backed off. Kevin, Neil suspected, wasn't quite so inclined. He was a dog with a bone when it came to Neil's game. Neil just hadn't anticipated it to spill off the court quite so much.

"When the length of a players hair or what he wears when it's not a uniform starts to matter more than how they actually play," he said flatly, "I'll know that exy's been well and truly corrupted. Pardon me for not pandering to the changeable whims of a camera, the media, and the fashion industry that I couldn't give a fuck about."

Kevin's scowl was fully formed in an instant, and he wasn't the only one to turn towards Neil. Matt grinned over his shoulder, and a couple of the freshmen shot him curious glances. Neil spared Matt a nod but mostly had attention for Andrew pacing at his side as they split to head to their table. Andrew, who was regarding him sidelong with an unblinking stare.

"What?" he asked.

Andrew didn't reply, only strode past him to plant himself in his chosen seat at the table. Even so, Neil wasn't quite sure why but for all of Kevin's huffing and Allison's fiddling, he didn't think he was alone in his opinion. Certainly so, given that Andrew bore an expression that wasn't quite a smile, wasn't quite a break in his expression, but was as close as it ever really came.

Neil didn't need to prove himself to anyone, and certainly not with fancy hair and fancier clothes. And yet it somehow felt just a little nice to have someone on his team. Just a little.


	6. Chapter 6

Winter still held Palmetto State tightly in its grasp as Katelyn's car pulled into the carpark of Fox Tower. Snow fell in soft flecks, veiling the air and melting moments after touching the ground. Dampness slicked the bitumen, and a thin coating of glossiness lathered the parking lot where the car drew to a stop.

The engine died with a soft putter. For a moment, Aaron simply sat. He stared up at the building he'd lived in for nearly three years, at the windows shuttered against the chill and doors tightly closed. Somehow, despite its familiarity, Fox Tower felt foreign. Different, external, and other to everything that Aaron had immersed himself in over Christmas. A dull ache in his chest murmured misgivings of returning to normalcy.

He hadn't seen his family in two weeks. Aaron wasn't sure if he was reluctant or itching to see their faces. There was little enough love lost between them, even if the volatility had waned in recent months, but...

"Hey. How're you holding up over there?"

Glancing sidelong, Aaron found himself smiling even before he noticed Katelyn was doing the same. Her own smile widened, and she offered him a hand over the gear stick between them. Her fingers tangling with his own immediately as he clasped them.

"Yeah," he said quietly. "Just… yeah."

"It was nice to get away for a while. Feels weird to be coming back, right? But, like, weird in a good way."

"I suppose."

"That's such a non-answer, Aaron."

Aaron squeezed her hand, peering up at the building through her rapidly fogging windscreen. He could see Andrew's rooms from the parking lot. The curtains were still drawn, as much of an indication of his absence as the lack of a Maserati in the parking lot. "I guess I'm just…"

"Look, it might take a while," Katelyn said, speaking the words that she'd voiced mostly to herself several times that day already, "but we'll get through it. What's the worst that could happen?"

"You really want to hear the worst?"

Katelyn's puff of laughter had a pained edge to it. She knew. Of course she knew. "It's not like you haven't been apart before. And just because this time is a little different…"

Aaron shrugged, dropping his gaze to their hands. "I know. It wasn't even for that long." The summer break had been longer. Andrew's hospital admission the year before had been longer. This was nothing new except -

"He still hasn't messaged you?" Katelyn asked.

"Andrew's not one much for texting."

"But he didn't seem angry, right?" Katelyn jostled his hand slightly. "You said he didn't seem angry when you told him."

"It's practically impossible to tell when Andrew's actually angry unless he's winging a knife at you." Katelyn cringed and Aaron immediately regretting his words. "Sorry."

Katelyn shrugged, even as her wince struggled to fade. "It's fine. It's true."

"Unpleasant to bring up in casual conversation, though."

"Is this casual conversation?"

"I suppose not."

Katelyn sighed. Aaron felt her turn towards the tower herself. "Surely he expected it," she murmured, and Aaron suspected she was speaking her thoughts more than to him. She did that sometimes – talking aloud simply so he knew what she was feeling, though never of trivialities. He loved it about her, even if it was impossible for him to offer the same courtesy. It made life so much simpler for them both. "Surely he must know that we're practically – I mean, you were going to meet the family eventually."

"He wasn't angry," Aaron said, though even voicing such a thought aloud didn't wholly convince him. "He wasn't anything."

"Come on, Aaron," Katelyn said. "You practically announced we're engaged."

"So? If you have a problem with that now then –"

"We're not even engaged!"

Aaron shrugged casually, even if he couldn't hide that the itch in his belly was rapidly smothered by warmth as Katelyn dissolved into laughter. "Not yet."

"Aaron!"

"What? Are you objecting?"

"We're only twenty-one!"

"And your point?"

Katelyn only laughed. Leaning towards him, she hooked an arm around his neck and tugged him into a kiss. "You haven't actually proposed yet," she murmured against his lips.

"Neither have you."

"Is that a challenge?"

"What, a race to the finish line?"

"The starting line, I think you mean."

Aaron stole another kiss. There were few things that could make him happier than whispering words of a future with Katelyn. Twenty-one or not, unofficial or not, it was the best thing in his life right now. The best thing that he'd ever had. If nothing else, it provided motivation to keep seeing the psych with Andrew. Aaron would fix Andrew's problems with Katelyn as much as he goddamn could before Andrew could fuck it up.

Katelyn was resilient, and Aaron knew she loved him, but how much could she be expected to take? A knife to the throat next time? The very thought made him sick.

"Hey," Katelyn said, recalling his attention with another kiss. "Why're you getting depressed again?"

"You really have to ask that?"

Katelyn made a flat, unhappy sound. "Let's stop talking about this. We'll cross whatever bridge we come to when we get to it."

Aaron nodded. "Okay."

"I mean it, Aaron. Problems of later can be dealt with later."

He nodded again. She always made it seem so simple. So easy when nothing in Aaron's life, nothing about Andrew, had ever been simple. "Right," he said, as if he believed it. For a moment, he almost did.

"Come on," Katelyn said after a moment of comfortable silence. "Let's head up."

"Do we have to?"

"It's starting to get cold in here."

"Turn your car back on, then. We could just –"

"Aa-ron!" Katelyn laughed again, releasing him and reaching between the seats for her jacket. "Come on, let's go. It's nearly dinner time and I'm starving."

Aaron didn't really want to go, even with the quelling of the feelings in his belly. But when Katelyn climbed out of the car it was impossible not to follow after her.

That, and because he caught sight of the Maserati pulling into the parking lot.

Shoving his hands into his pockets, Aaron nudged the car door closed with his shoulder. He spared Andrew's car only a cursory glance as he fell into step beside Katelyn and didn't slow as they made for the tower. Katelyn tucked her arm through his, huddling into his side and muttering curses against the cold under her breath.

"Hope Nadia's already in," she said. "She's more of a cold-body than me, even. She'd have turned the heat on already. Dinner at mine?"

Aaron didn't need to reply. It was a given, and he rarely ate in his own rooms these days anyway, despite Nicky's petulant insistence that they spend some 'quality time together'. Pulling his key-card out of his pocket as the approached the doors, Katelyn had already begun to voice thoughts of ordering delivery when the doors opened for them.

"It doesn't work," said a man that Aaron had only sporadically seen before, his head poking his head through the narrow crack. "Power's out."

"What?" Katelyn asked.

"Power's out," the man repeated. "Dunno how long for but all the electricity's down."

Katelyn tipped her head back with a groan. "Dammit. Has anyone called maintenance or something? The head office?"

The man shrugged. Stepping aside, he tugged the door open a little further for them. "Heaps of people. We're still waiting for someone to show up. But the lift's down, all the lights are out, and people are complaining about all their stuff going off in their fridges because…"

Aaron listened with half an ear as he followed Katelyn into the lobby. It was cluttered with people, bodies packed tightly together, and warmer than the absence of electricity suggested it should be. A quick scan found a handful of the younger Foxes, and Aaron nodded in brief acknowledgement before following Katelyn further into the room.

"… had a look at the meter box," the man who'd opened the door was saying to Katelyn, "but no one knows jack shit about the wiring."

"What, we don't have a single engineering student here?" Katelyn asked.

The man shrugged. "I know Josh does, and I'm fairly sure Tessa does too –"

"Let me guess. Still away?"

"You guessed it. Bryn had a bit of a poke at it, but I think he did more harm than good. It looks like a bit of a mess; even I can tell he tangled it up worse than it was."

"Jeez," Katelyn muttered, turning into Aaron as the man was distracted by someone bidding for his attention, "put a stadium of sports students in a blacked-out building and watch them fail epically."

Aaron made a wordless sound of agreement. He couldn't really care less but to admit it was a slight annoyance. Someone else's problem for someone else to fix. What was more annoying was the sheer number of people crammed into the lobby as though lingering on the doorstep would fix the problem rather than retreating to their independent rooms. It wasn't an excuse that the darkening evening would turn those rooms into gloomy closets; people shouldn't cluster themselves with such density, in Aaron's opinion. Not when they could make such incessant noise as that bouncing off walls and all but echoing up the stairwell

He was about to suggest a retreat to Katelyn when Nicky appeared at his side. "Hey," he said, flashing them both a smile. "Just got in. Amil said the power's out?"

Aaron shrugged again, his gaze already drawn to his brother two steps behind Nicky. Andrew didn't look his way, was attending to Neil at his side as Neil murmured low enough that his words couldn't be heard over the hubbub. Andrew didn't appear fazed by the clamour surrounding them, but he rarely did until push came to shove.

Aaron rather hoped he wasn't in his brother's vicinity when he started shoving.

"Fuck, of all the timing," Nicky said, raking a hand through his hair. "Seriously, where's campus police when you need it?"

"What would campus police do?" Aaron asked, dragging his attention towards Nicky instead.

"Fix the problem."

"It's a problem with the electricity though," Katelyn said.

"Yeah, but guys like that have a natural knack for fixing things. Pure-bred handymen."

"I think you're thinking of maintenance. We have those too, you know."

"Same-same."

"It's really not," Aaron said.

"Maybe we could ask Matt?" Nicky suggested.

"Matt?" Katelyn glanced towards Aaron. "Is he majoring in engineering or something?"

"No," Aaron said, rolling his eyes. "For some reason Nicky just thinks he's capable of that sort of thing."

"He fixes things pretty well," Nicky said. "Come on, even you have to admit that."

"He can't fix our coffee machine. It's still broken."

"That's an exception to the rule. He's a handyman too."

"What exactly is your criteria for handyman, then?" Katelyn asked far more innocently than Aaron could have pulled off.

Nicky opened his mouth to reply but cut himself off as he caught, distracted. "Hey, where're you two off to?"

Neil paused where he and Andrew had been making their way back towards the front doors. Aaron was fairly sure Andrew wouldn't have bothered if he hadn't. "The power's out," Neil said, as though stating the obvious as everyone else had was a necessary explanation.

"Are you two fucking off, then?" Nicky asked. "If you're getting dinner, I'm coming with you."

Neil shook his head. "No, we're –" he gestured vaguely towards the doors, "going to try and fix it."

Nicky blinked blankly, and Aaron could only echo the unspoken sentiment. "You're what?"

"Fixing it."

"You can fix it? Because Andrew couldn't so – Neil, are you a species of handyman?"

Neil frowned. He shared a glance with Andrew before turning back to Nicky. "I don't know if I can do it but it's worth trying." Then, without another word, he fell back into step with Andrew and they quickly disappeared through the doors.

"Well, blow me down," Nicky said. "I never knew that."

"Neil doesn't do engineering, does he?" Katelyn asked.

"As far as I'm aware?" Nicky shook his head. "But then again, he's always pulling random stuff like that out of his arse. It never fails to surprise me."

"He hasn't even fixed anything," Aaron muttered.

"_Yet_," Nicky said. "Emphasis on the _yet_. I'm half convinced Neil's a secret genius in about a dozen different areas and we just don't know about it."

Aaron didn't reply. What could he possibly have to say to something like that? He didn't like Neil – didn't like him to the point of severe dislike much of the time – and it wasn't a secret from the rest of the team. Even without the relationship Neil had with Andrew and the issues it raised, Neil rubbed Aaron the wrong way. He would tolerate him, even follow his instruction on the court because, in spite of his modest years of participation in exy, he was capable. Even one who hated Neil would have to admit that much.

But that didn't mean Aaron had to like him. It certainly didn't mean he had to gush and grow starry eyed over the very realistic possibility that Neil knew which switch was the right one to flick or some such bullshit. Never mind that Aaron didn't know himself; it wasn't like it was exceptional.

Besides, Neil was an asshole. What further reasons did Aaron need?

Folding his arms, Aaron turned from Nicky as Nicky caught Katelyn up in conversation – something about music and a new iPod he'd purchased for someone as a Christmas gift – and turned his regard upon the room instead. The lobby was rapidly darkening, faces becoming obscured, and there was a current of unease, of frustration, underlying the casualness of the crowd. Aaron didn't feel it, didn't care all that much for passing irritants like power outages, and would be more than happy to retreat to a dark room so long as it was in relative isolation. Even if Matt or some other capable student showed up there was no promise that he'd be able to do anything about the situation. Maybe it was a powerline? A dead battery? That was a thing, wasn't it?

"… say you've never even heard of it," Nicky was saying, pulling his phone from his pocket and shuffling a little to Katelyn's side to show her the screen. "Here, I'll show you. This guy, he's amazing. Has the most incredible voice and – oh, hey, look who's finally showed up!"

Glancing towards Nicky, Aaron followed the line of his gaze and gesturing hand towards and through the doors. Matt's truck had pulled up on the curb, and even as he watched Aaron saw Matt and Dan unload themselves. Nicky's outburst turned a few heads and one, the girl Aaron vaguely recognised to be Amil chirped up.

"Maintenance?" she asked.

"Finally," someone else said.

"About time," said another.

"No, but it's the next best thing," Nicky said, already making for the doors. "Matt's got handyman genes. I'll ask him to perform his magic. He could lend Neil a hand with –"

The lights flicked on.

Aaron instinctively glanced upwards. For a split second there was a pause of surprised silence. Then it shattered into an outburst of cheers. The hum of electricity restored was drowned out by voices, relief thickening every voice, and the scuffle of movement as bodies rolled into motion. Within seconds, a tidal wave of athletes was flocking to the stairs. Nicky was practically washed away in the thick of it.

"Oh, that's a bit of a relief," Katelyn said. "That kind of thing can be such a pain."

"Mm," Aaron grunted non-committedly.

"Did Neil do it, or did it just come back on itself?"

Aaron didn't reply. It wasn't so much that he was reluctant to acknowledge the possibility but – no, that wasn't it. A portion of it, but only a fraction. Instead, he held his silence as the student rush thinned slightly, watching as first Matt and Dan and then Neil and Andrew entered the building. He watched as they paused on the threshold, as Dan asked something and Neil replied, and he watched as eyebrows rose in surprise.

Aaron didn't need to be told.

As he stared, Nicky broke free of the body of students and made for them with bouncing steps. He greeted Matt and Dan with a smile and a word before turning to Neil and Andrew, clapping Neil on the shoulder and saying something that Aaron couldn't hear. Neil said something back, and Nicky's surprised bark of laughter was far from unfamiliar. As he'd said, unexpected revelations were something of a common occurrence when it came to Neil.

For a moment, Aaron felt the unexpected urge to join them. He wasn't sure what it was exactly – the laughter, the casual comfortability that radiated from their small group, the fact that for once Andrew appeared… if not happy then at least calm. Composed. At ease, even. Maybe it was the holiday, the brief respite of freedom before returning to college, that still lingered comfortably like the remnants of a filling meal, but it was so rarely witnessed that it was nearly impossible to look away.

Especially not when he could notice so much at a distance.

Andrew was staring at Neil. Not speaking, not holding his hand or leaning against him, but that stare said a lot. A lot that Aaron couldn't but almost wanted to hear, because that? That stare was something Aaron never saw in Andrew at any other time. So subtle as to be easily missed but present nonetheless. Something… something that was….

Maybe Nicky was onto something with his proclamations of Neil's silent genius. Aaron might not like him, but he could admit he must have some kind of skill if he could provoke such a thing from Andrew.

Almost without realising it, Aaron found himself reaching for Katelyn's hand. She didn't comment as she took it, fingers slipping between his own to squeeze tightly. "Shall we head upstairs?" she asked, as always understanding his unspoken question. She barely waited for Aaron's nod before tugging him after the tail end of retreating students.

Aaron followed her lead, but if he glanced back at his brother and teammates for just a little longer, it wasn't as if anyone of importance would see. Andrew didn't even look his way.

* * *

"The red wire or the black one?" Nicky asked, pausing halfway up the flight of stairs.

Neil glanced up at him as he too paused. "What?"

"Which one did you cut?"

"It's not diffusing a bomb, Nicky," Dan called from further up the stairwell. "You don't cut something to turn it back on."

"Okay, okay, whatever," Nicky replied, turning towards her and continuing his climb. "I never claimed to know about that kind of thing anyway."

Neil stared after him, still at as much of loss as he had been from the moment Nicky had all but launched himself at him minutes before. He still couldn't quite understand what all the fuss was about, just as he failed to see why flicking a few switches – something that was far from a trying task – hadn't been done by one of the dozens of other athletes residing in Fox Tower.

It wasn't like it was hard. Surely people weren't that incompetent.

Matt bumped his shoulder as he passed him up the stairs, and Neil fell into step beside him. "You're looking puzzled still," Matt said.

"Nicky's overreacting," Neil said.

Matt grinned. "That's kind of his thing. Thought you knew that about him."

"Yeah," Neil said slowly, eyes on his feet as they climbed, "but sometimes it seems less logical than other times."

"Watch out. From now on you'll be the person he comes to if he wants something fixed."

"I thought you were that person."

"Not lately."

"You fixed Andrew's window the first year I was here." When Matt only blinked at him, Neil held up a fist. "When he punched through it."

"Oh yeah," Matt glanced over his shoulder at where Andrew followed just behind him. Andrew didn't spare him acknowledgement. "Well, it's not like putting in a new window is hard."

"Neither is switching the power back on," Neil replied.

"Some would beg to differ."

"Like Nicky. Yeah, I got that."

Matt chuckled as they finished the climb to their floor. When Neil paused outside his door, Matt slowed, turning to walk backwards towards his own rooms and gesturing over his shoulder as he did so. "Seeing as you're our newest handyman, you'll have to take a go at our coffee machine. It's broken, you know."

"I know. Nicky told me." Several times, in fact. Nicky had bemoaned his loss of decent morning coffee to Neil even before the winter break. "I doubt I'll be able to fix that."

"You know how to do a heap of random shit, Neil. I wouldn't be surprised." With a wink, Matt turned back to his rooms and let himself through the half-open door. The muted chatter of conversation, of Nicky already readjusting to the suite and Matt replying, echoed down the hallway after them.

Neil shook his head as he watched the door swing shut by a phantom hand. He couldn't really understand that mentality – that simple experience in one area was immediately transferable to another. Matt and Nicky weren't the first to make such an assumption; Dan had been the same at the beginning of semester, assuming that his ability in math equated to similar ability in statistics. It had helped, sure, but it wasn't quite the breeze Dan accused him of.

One too many dodgy hotels, a handful of decrepit hideouts with flickering lights, and the houses Neil had squatted in throughout his life were beneficial only in hindsight. Just because he could fiddle with a few cables, knew which switches to flick, and could at a pinch redirect the neighbours' internet to piggyback their signal didn't make him an expert. Not in the least. Rather, the incident of moments before was about the only time such skills had been of tangible use since Neil's life on the run had reached an abrupt conclusion.

Andrew sweeping silently past him into the room recalled Neil's attention and, shaking himself from his thoughts, Neil followed after him. Kevin wasn't back yet and after the hubbub of the downstairs lobby the quiet that followed closing the door was like a breath of fresh air. Neil had only just dropped his bag to the floor, nudging it out of the way and tucking his keys into the pocket, when Andrew appeared directly in front of him.

He didn't say anything. Not with words. It had been a long weekend, a long drive back to campus, and oftentimes Neil found Andrew dove into fits of relative silence as another might take a nap to recuperate. That silence wasn't of the detached kind, however, and when he help up the laptop before him, waving it slightly towards Neil, the message was clear enough.

"Really?" Neil asked.

Andrew blinked.

"I won't be able to fix that."

Andrew's eyebrow rose incrementally.

"If you want it fixed properly then take it to the campus repair place. I'd probably end up making it worse. You're going to trust me to try and fiddle it back into working properly again?"

Andrew blinked again and Neil rolled his eyes. "You're actually following Nicky's lead on this one," he said mostly to himself. "That'd be a first."

"You knew what you were doing downstairs," Andrew said shortly. "Don't pretend you didn't. And from your stories?" He left the rest unsaid as Neil flicked through his memories of having possibly mentioned such a thing to Andrew in the past.

"That?" Neil said, locking onto the one instance that could have made the cut. "That was one time, and my mother's computer was only glitching, it wasn't –"

He cut himself off as Andrew nudged the laptop into his chest. No more words, just a simple gesture that spoke for itself.

Neil sighed. He accepted the laptop. Turning, he took himself to his desk and pulled out the miniature screw driver set that he kept in his desk drawer, the set on of many necessities for the odd occasion when it was easier to do than to ask for help. The tape measure, packing tape, and plethora of pens, pencils, lock picks, and scattered screws of variable sizes rolled and rocked together with the motion of the drawer. They seemed to have accumulated almost without his realising and Neil wondered absently if someone else had been dropping found fragments into the drawer.

"Don't blame me if I make it worse," he said over his shoulder, dropping into his chair and plucking a screw driver loose. "It doesn't even cost you anything to go to the campus repair, so you could just…"

He trailed off, already popping Andrew's computer open, and was only detachedly aware of Andrew taking up a position behind him. He hardly thought himself capable in such a skill, but improvising from the knowledge he had? It had worked in the past, so why not again? If Neil had learned one thing in his life it was that, sometimes, it was easier just to try than to give in to helpless naivety. The possibility of getting it right was oftentimes as easy as flicking a switch.


	7. Chapter 7

There were few things Abby appreciated in life as much as a well-deserved, lazy Saturday morning. Such mornings was especially cherished a week into semester when the mayhem of duties hit one of their many peaks. Waking to warm covers and clean light creeping through the blinds was a heady luxury that was so rarely afforded with a busy schedule and only intensified her appreciation for her moments of quietude.

Alas, it could not always be. At times, the opposite was far more rudely thrust into the wee hours of her morning.

The frantic rapping of knuckles on wood shook her front door, thundering through the house and likely waking the neighbours on either side of her. Staggering from her bedroom, Abby winced and squinted at the abrasive light springing to life, flicked on as she passed. A near slip down the stairs slowed her step, and she caught herself on the balustrade, pausing for a moment before reaching for the downstairs light and flicking it similarly alight.

It was still dark outside. Peering through the peephole in the front door, Abby's glimpse of her porch was dominated entirely by a cluster of shadowed bodies blocking the way. Dread pooled in her belly and a fist squeezed her chest as she rapidly slipped the chain free and locks open.

"What happened?" Abby demanded before the door was even fully open.

Columbia was most likely, but that wasn't what Abby meant and the five men standing before her knew it. She could see they did. Aaron's face was a hardened mask as he led the way across the threshold. Nicky's hair was askew from raking his fingers through the mess of it one too many times, and Kevin's shoulders were so tight it looked almost painful. What was important, though, was Andrew. Andrew and Neil.

"God," Abby whispered, reaching unconsciously for the both of them where they lingered on her doormat before catching herself. Schooling herself, she stepped aside and gestured within. "Into the kitchen, the both of you."

The metallic scent of blood followed them as they stepped past her. Abby eyed them both, gaze raking up one and down the other, skimming over the stains that streaked clothes that looked like nothing if not like club-wear. They were a mess, and not just on their shirts; Andrew's forehead was streaked with dried blood and Neil's hands looked to have been bathed in it.

The worst part was that it wasn't unexpected. Not entirely. It had been a while since they'd had an incident but… no. It wasn't unexpected.

Aaron stepped aside and Nicky backpedalled to clear the way as Andrew made off in the direction Abby had sent them. Neil followed on his tail, just as blank-faced and silent, and neither spared any of the other three of their group an ounce of attention. Abby snapped the front door closed and hastened to follow after them, only to pause alongside Aaron with a silent question. After a pause, Aaron obliged.

"I don't know what it was specifically." His voice was as strained as his expression. "I didn't even notice till we got home."

"You didn't notice?" Abby asked.

Aaron likely heard her incredulity, for he flicked her a gaze, a frown, and his face hardened further. "When we left there wasn't a problem – or there didn't seem to be. Neil drove home, though. We went inside. They headed upstairs just the two of them like they always do." He gave a tight shrug. "I didn't notice anything until –"

"There was blood everywhere." Nicky's voice was thin and his eyes were tight and faintly pleading. He gestured helplessly after Andrew and Neil before raising his hand back to his head, fingers tangling in his hair. "There was – just blood. Everywhere. All over the bathroom floor. And they were just sitting there. In the blood. On the floor. Like – like it was just –"

Cutting himself off, Nicky shook his head. "I didn't even see him get into a fight, and he seems – you know, he seems alright."

"He is alright," Kevin said quietly.

"Which one?" Abby asked.

"Andrew," they said in unison and nothing more. Nothing else was really needed.

Chewing her lip, Abby stared after Andrew and Neil's disappearance into the kitchen. That much blood, even if it didn't leave Andrew unconscious or groaning in pain, promised some significant level of damage. Steeling herself, she turned and strode to the bathroom, snatched up her home first-aid kit, and wove through Aaron, Kevin, and Nicky where they'd stationed themselves in the hallway outside of the kitchen. Dropping the kit onto the dining table, she turned to where Andrew had planted himself, perched on the edge of the table with Neil propped at his side.

"There's a perfectly good chair," Abby said, though she far from expected Andrew to abide by her silent suggestion. He didn't even twitch, only watched heavy-lidded and detached as she flipped her kit open and riffled inside. "Do I need to cut your shirt off?"

"It's fine," Neil answered for them both. "It's covered up."

"Covered up?" Abby switched a glance between them both. "Do I have to ask why you both didn't take yourselves to a hospital?"

"_I'm_ fine," Neil said, and Abby withheld the urge to roll her eyes. Now wasn't the time, especially when Andrew only tipped his head in a neutral reply. Instead, she cast a skimming glance over him before, with a gesture of askance, set about rolling Andrew's shirt up. Her fingers were delicate, her motions slow, and not only for the possible pain careless tugging could cause. Even with his permission, Andrew was nothing if not reluctant to undertake an examination in any sense of the term. That at least was something most of the Foxes shared.

There was so much blood. So much that it was difficult to tell if the darkness of Andrew's shirt was a design feature or a whole-fabric stain. It was mostly dried, though, slightly stiffened, which Abby supposed was something at least. Some small mercy.

The padding beneath was clean, though. The white gauze and dressing, the tape pinning it down atop a wide wound that scored Andrew's torso. Blood still smeared the skin around it, dark enough and thick enough that Abby would have been concerned even if she didn't hold the edges of his destroyed shirt in her hands, but that wasn't what made her pause. Not the only thing.

Abby flicked a glance up to Neil. "You patched it up already?"

Neil hitched a shoulder.

"What did you use?" There was a pause in which Neil regarded her in silent query before she elaborated. "Did you clean it? Disinfect it?"

A flicker of annoyance cast a frown across Neil's face before he glanced towards Andrew. Folding his arms across his chest, he edged a little closer, and Abby wasn't so oblivious as to overlook the deliberate repositioning. It was just so, just right in blocking any line of sight from the rest of their group lingering in the doorway.

"It's cleaned," Neil said mechanically. "Disinfected. There were three deep enough for stitches."

"Three?" Nicky warbled from the hallway.

"You stitched him?" Aaron asked, surprise undermining the flatness of his question.

"Neil," Abby began, because there was so much about a back-alley suturing that raised problems and potential complications, but Neil overrode her.

"I used forceps and tweezers," he said. "Sterilised them, too. With Andrew's lighter. The stitching's good enough to hold." He glanced back to Abby, lips drawing to the side briefly before he shot a glance towards the hallway. "It's taken care of. Nicky and Aaron were unnecessarily worried."

"They could learn to leave well enough alone," Andrew said, and there was nothing in his voice to suggest he was in any distress or pain.

Not that Abby would believe that casualness. Not that she wouldn't take precautions anyway. Neil had reportedly done everything right up to and including being as safe as possible with the limited resources he'd had. If anything, given his history, Abby was surprised he'd gone so far; she might have expected his approach to be rougher. A little more careless.

Glancing between the two of them, she lowered her hand to the tape. Another silent query received Andrew's nod, and she peeled the strips free with gentle tugs. The kitchen seemed to hold its breath, suspended in watchful silence as she worked, and it remained as such as she lowered the bandages to the table at Andrew's side.

What lay beneath was bad. It was an injury, so there was no possible way it wouldn't be. Three lines scored Andrew's belly, the widest stretching towards and nearly over his hip bone, and it would likely hurt him to twist more than an inch or two. Why and how he'd climbed up onto the table Abby didn't know, though all things considered it was perhaps to be expected of someone like Andrew.

What wasn't expected was that, unlike the skin surrounding the lines the tape had made, the area was clean. Meticulously clean. More than that, the sutures pinning each slice together were perfectly neat and minutely spacing. For a moment, Abby could only stare. She'd seen enough primary care treatment to know a good job when she saw one.

Sparing a glance for Neil, another up at Andrew's face, she ran feather light fingers around the wound. Pressing, feeling, discerning. Andrew didn't protest, just as he never protested, but Abby wasn't sure she'd have noticed even if he had. For the moment, her mind was consumed with clinical assessment, and it was only with the absence of swelling, of hard lumps and pained twitches, that she let herself release a slow breath and step back.

"Is he alright?" Nicky asked, leaning around the door frame and almost around Neil himself as Abby set about redressing the wounds in their bandages. There was no point in scrapping them for new ones; the wounds had hardly seeped at all. "Do we need to go to hospital?"

"No," Andrew said flatly just as Abby shook her head.

"It should be alright," she said, running a finger over the tape with gentle, firm pats. "I'll keep an eye on it, send you for antibiotics in the morning, but no. It's fine."

"Really?" Aaron asked. "Because he bled a lot. Shouldn't he be taken to professional care?"

"Who'd be more equipped for this sort of thing than Neil?" Nicky said with a feeble attempt at light-heartedness. His laughter was just as fragile and dwindled beneath the frown Aaron sent his way.

"He should be fine, Aaron," Abby said, though she couldn't help but spare a glance in Neil's direction. "It's been well-treated. I'll keep an eye on it but there isn't anything else I can do at the present unless – Andrew? Painkillers?"

"Maybe in hell," Andrew replied.

Abby nodded. It was expected. "Then that's settled. It will be okay, Aaron. I'll have at least Andrew sleeping here tonight, but you're all welcome to pull up a pillow."

Murmurs met her words and a trio of heads bobbed in silent acceptance of the offer. Kevin and Nicky spared only a moment of owlish peering towards Andrew before slinking away, and Aaron only a moment longer of piercing attentiveness before he turned and followed. Only when he disappeared did Abby shift her attention back to Neil and Andrew.

"What happened?" she asked quietly.

"Nothing of importance," Andrew said, kicking his leg in an absent swing before levering himself down from the table. There was barely a sliver of awkwardness to suggest he felt any tenderness in his wounds.

"If you were attacked," Abby began.

"It's fine, Abby," Neil said. "Better to leave it."

For a moment, Abby wanted to protest. She so dearly longed to, and not only in this instance. There were countless times when her players – her Foxes – needed treatment and she could only silently attend to them with lips folded and jaw tightly clenched. She hated it, hated that they could be so poorly treated, that they sought such treatment themselves in pursuit of some sort of misguided gratification, but really –

She could do nothing. In such things, Abby could do nothing but hope she could get to them fast enough to improve their outcome. Which meant that anything that could slow the damage along the way was a lifesaver of sorts.

Turning towards Neil, Abby regarded him quietly. He wasn't looking at her, was eyeing Andrew who in turn met his gaze before tipping his chin slightly in what was a frequent mode of their silent communication. Abby was only too familiar with it but for once let her curiosity sidelined. Instead, sparing another skimming assessment for Andrew as he took himself to the sink to stick his blood-streaked hands beneath the faucet, she stepped to Neil's side.

"You did a commendable job," she said quietly, smiling tightly as Neil glanced towards her. "I can imagine Andrew would be in far worse circumstances if you hadn't been there."

Neil stared at her for a long moment interrupted only by the flush of running water before replying slowly. "It's nothing particularly remarkable."

"Maybe it doesn't seem that way to you," Abby said. "Look, Neil, I know I shouldn't ask or wonder but –"

"Then don't," Neil said simply, and Abby fell silent.

He was right. Abby new he was right, and she respected her Foxes enough that she wouldn't ask again. She wanted to, longed to have him confide in her with the ease and comfort that came only after years of Fox treatment, but at the same time she hated to consider the circumstances that would lead to him developing such a skillset. To have such capabilities so refined. It was saddening to say the least. Heart-breaking, if Abby let it be so. Maybe it was a blessing of sorts that Neil wouldn't soothe her curiosity.

So Abby didn't ask. She stood in silent watch as Andrew finished at the sink before turning and leading Neil out of the kitchen. Neil's murmured "thank you for letting us stay the night" was met by a small smile that was about all Abby could manage. There wasn't much left of said night, after all.

When the sound of their footsteps finally faded into silence, Abby lowered herself down to a seat at the table. She stared at but didn't really see her first aid kit spread before her, acknowledged but didn't think about the clock on her oven flashing four-oh-seven with digital symbols. To the slow, slow approach of dawn sketching grey light through her window, Abby met her Saturday morning. It wasn't how she would prefer to awaken, but at least it wasn't worse. At the very least, she could thank that it wasn't far, far worse.

* * *

The water flowing over Neil's fingers had long since run clean, but it took an extra effort for him to turn the tap off. Staring down at his hands, his nails picked at his cuticles in a compulsive attempt to scour clear blood that no longer remained.

Some things would never change. The stickiness of blood, the way it stiffened his skin into a roughened surface – and that he hated it. He always would. It wasn't a problem, was manageable, but yes. He hated it.

The fight that evening had been short, fast, and brutal. Utterly one-sided too, until a knife had been drawn. For once it hadn't been Andrew who had pulled the weapon first, and Neil had never wished he'd been quicker to do so more.

The drunken thugs weren't a problem. Not really. The lucky swipes were a final, scrambling attempt to inflict damage before they were hauled away by the bouncers at Eden's Twilight when they'd finally done what they were paid to do. It was those slices, seemingly shallow and negligible in the light of Andrew's disregard, that were the problem. Neil wouldn't have noticed anything at all had a passing touch not coated his fingers with warm blood.

Kevin didn't notice. Nicky, Aaron didn't either. When Neil made short work of herding them together and silently sped back to the house in Columbia, the three were as oblivious and half asleep as ever. Neil barely noticed when Kevin started snoring. He noticed more that his fingers stuck to the steering wheel, skin peeling in a sickly snap at he stepped out of the car and led the way inside.

The harsh bathroom light reminded Neil of cheap hotels and grimy stalls in equally cheap diners. The collection of forceps and tweezers scavenged from the bathroom cupboard, fitting into his hands like a well-worn glove, echoed the memory of a sharp "don't be a fool and risk infection if you can help it", of hours spent hunched over sponge and rubber to practice beneath his mother's instruction what he'd so failed at in his first attempt. Padding and bandages, swabs and the sharp scent of alcohol wipes, the press of a needle against skin and the slight resistance before he pushed through it – it was all achingly familiar in the most sombre of ways.

Neil had never considered himself an expert when it came to what needed to be done. After Abby's words, the considering look in her eyes, he still didn't. That didn't mean he hadn't done so many of just such necessary back-alley treatments that he could practically do them blindfolded. As a teenager in the privacy of darkness, his mother's short, sharp breaths hissing through her teeth as she swallowed her pain, he practically had.

Drying his hands on Abby's neatly folded towel, Neil retreated down the hallway and into the spare room. In all of his time as a Fox he'd not spent enough of it at Abby's to explore the upper floor, but Andrew clearly had. He'd made himself comfortable on the spare bed, legs kicked out before him and reclined with a lazy laxness that only a trained eye would be able to note for its stiffness.

Neil didn't comment. There was nothing to say about the situation. Instead, he dropped onto the opposite end of the bed and tucked his legs up before him.

An extended pause followed in which Neil was all too aware of Andrew regarding him with silent reprimand before one socked foot nudged his knee. "I'll kick you if you sleep there."

"Would you rather I slept on the floor?" Neil asked.

"Don't be obtuse."

"Then say what you actually mean."

Andrew didn't reply. Neil waited, but whether because it was that he'd not slept a wink that night and it was catching up with him or because of the wound marring his belly, Andrew clearly wasn't inclined to rise to the bait of a verbal battle. For once, Neil met him halfway. "I'm not going to risk splitting your stitches or something by rolling the wrong way."

"Your concern is pointless," Andrew said.

"You have more faith in my suturing abilities than I do, then."

"Not particularly," Andrew replied. "You just don't move when you sleep. At any other time I would remind you how abnormal you are, but in this instance it might actually be useful."

Neil swallowed a snort. When he opened his mouth to reply, however, he was cut short by a short, sharp knock on the bedroom door. They both turned towards it, and Neil tipped his head slightly to hear for the distinctive retreat of footsteps to follow their lack of reply. When none followed, he rose silently from the bed.

Aaron stood in the hallway, a foot away from the door and leaning against the opposite wall. When Neil propped the door open just far enough to peer through, Aaron's eyes flicked over his shoulder only briefly before darting back to him. Mimicking Aaron's posture, Neil folded his arms and propped himself on the doorframe; it was the kind of silent language, the forbiddance of entry, that Aaron would understand well enough.

He clearly did for he made no move to step forwards. Instead, after a long pause and two attempts at speaking, he grunted and snapped his gaze sidelong. "You fixed him up."

Right to the meat of it then. Neil nodded once. "Of course."

"You should have taken him to a hospital."

"Could have but didn't."

"Should –"

"Could."

Aaron's jaw worked and his glare shifted towards Neil. "It's stupid to not seek medical help in situations like that. You could have put him at risk."

Neil tipped his head slightly, regarding him. For all he postured, Aaron showed his care more than he likely hoped for. "Taking someone who doesn't want to go somewhere right where they don't want to be is a risk too."

"The circumstances –"

"Were fine." Neil raised his eyebrows as Aaron turned properly back towards him, glare narrowing. "We knew what we were doing. I've done it before."

"You don't –" Cutting himself off this time, Aaron huffed and glanced sideways down the empty hallway. He seemed to battle with himself for a moment before, abruptly, like a balloon releasing its air, he deflated. His glare remained as it shifted back to Neil but there was no heat to it.

"If that ever happens again," he said slowly.

"I'll fix him up," Neil said. "You know I will."

With a stilted nod, Aaron let it slide. "And if it's too serious to be 'fixed up' –"

"I'm not an idiot," Neil said.

"Could have fooled me." Again, Aaron's mutter held no heat and his gaze dropped to the floor. He battled with himself once more, and Neil waited him out for a long pause before he continued. "Don't let your pride get in the way of the safety of other people. Even if he tells you to. Don't."

Neil could have said a lot of things, most of them sharp and stabbing, but for once he held his tongue. Instead, he regarded Aaron for another long moment, his hunched shoulders and tucked chin, the tight clench of his fists where they were wedged into his elbows. It was as clear as a written declaration that Aaron was unhappy with the situation. That he'd hated being kept in the dark and ardently wished to have stepped in when he'd known Andrew was injured. Neil didn't need his scathing reprimands to just that effect in the drive to Abby's to know.

Aaron was concerned, perhaps even scared, and his fear made him angry.

"I wouldn't let pride come in the way of safety," Neil said. "Not for someone I care about."

Aaron's eyes darted towards him. "You –"

"I wouldn't, Aaron."

Aaron folded his lips. Slowly, his chin rose, his gaze still narrowed but no longer glaring. Just as slowly, his arms unfolded and lowered to his sides.

"I don't like you," he finally said.

"The feeling is mutual."

"Shut up," Aaron said with a slight toss of his head. "I mean it. I don't like you, but I'll trust you on this. Don't fuck it up."

With that, his fists systematically clenching and loosening at his sides, Aaron turned and strode down the hallway. Neil watched his tight shoulders as he was swallowed by the relative darkness. The distinctive sound of a door opening, Nicky's "where'd you go?", and the click of a lock followed. With a mental shrug, Neil followed suit.

"Are you planning on making a habit of speaking about other people when they're in the same room as you?" Andrew asked.

Turning from the door, Neil gave a proper shrug this time. "It depends. Are you planning on contributing next time, or should I keep acting like you actually can't hear me?"

Andrew grunted. His eyes were mostly closed, the pillow folded upon itself and an arm tucked beneath it just as he always slept. It was a relief to see that he was at least comfortable enough to attempt to reach oblivion.

"We're not having this conversation now," Andrew said.

"Because you feel like I'd win whatever we argued?"

"No," Andrew said, though Neil heard the begrudging acknowledgement beneath it. "Because I'm tired. Come to bed."

Neil didn't ask Andrew if he was sure. He didn't double check, didn't remind Andrew that it might put his wounds at risk. Andrew knew all of that, and it would do him a disservice to brush that understanding aside. Besides, Neil would admit that he'd gotten used to sharing a bed with Andrew, and he didn't think it was too far-fetched to think that Andrew did too.

As Neil climbed beneath the blanket, Andrew shuffled slightly in place, his eyes already closed and tucked in his typical half-curl. It was only when Neil settled himself that he murmured in a muffled voice, "You shouldn't say things like that so carelessly."

"Things like care?" Neil guessed. "Even if I mean it?"

Andrew didn't reply. Neil wasn't sure if it was because he'd already fallen to sleep or because he felt no obligation – or inclination – to do so. It was as likely either way when it came to Andrew. Still, as he let himself slide towards sleep, it wasn't unexpected when Andrew's foot butted against his own, resting gently rather than drawing away. Andrew might not say the same in quite the same way, but Neil was learning his language well enough these days.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: Renee's Moments of Tranquillity**

There was something invigorating about teetering on the physical edge. Invigorating rather than suffocating, as balancing on a metaphorical edge had been so many times in her past. Renee supposed she could understand why Andrew subjected himself to it.

Perched on the edge of the roof, her legs folded beneath her and the thick jacket enough to stave off the chill of the wind twirling her hair, Renee gazed out across the grounds. Palmetto State University looked far larger from such a height. Larger, and far more widespread. There was the engineering building, seemingly further than it always felt when trekking on foot. The biology labs that Renee had wandered into on the odd occasion that passing interest directed her study selections. Social Sciences, the most familiar of them all, was the furthest, but even those buildings were visible from the top of Fox Tower. Visible, and yet so far. If she raised her hand…

Closing one eye, Renee smiled to herself as, hand lifted, she blotted out a cluster of buildings with her thumb. If she held her hand just so, she could erase the whole eastern wing entirely, leaving the stretch of grounds, green and rolling down an empty slope, refreshingly free of human evidence. Renee loved such sights. She loved such impressions. Most of the time she loved people too, but sometimes, on some occasions, it was nice to be reminded that in sparingly brief slivers of time there was nobody and nothing besides emptiness and nature.

Dropping her hand back into her lap, Renee closed her eyes and tilted her head back. On the edges of hearing she could detect the hum of engines, intermittent passing cars disappearing down the nearest road. A shout from someone, distant and easily ignored, was captured by the wind and replaced by the natural, organ-like howl of it as it wound its way around the building and clambered to the rooftop. Breathing deeply, Renee could taste it – the coldness of crisp spring, the silence that it carried, the emptiness it promised – and it was refreshing. As invigorating as the momentary thrill of adrenaline that coursed through her in the moments she looked down, down, down the drop of the Tower to the curb below.

Another breath and Renee heard her heartbeat. Another and she caught the crisp tang of iciness. Rain, maybe? Another, and another, each as refreshing and soothing as the last. Her calm wasn't a façade but a practiced, comforting outfit that Renee wore on a daily basis. Sometimes, however, that outfit needed a good scrub to be as clean and untouchable as new, and it was in those moments that she felt herself washed clean.

No one could stay calm forever. No one could be unaffected by everything. Renee knew that better than perhaps anyone. It was moments of quiet and isolation that ensured she could preserve as much of her own calmness as possible.

The hum of a car pulling into the parking lot beneath her drew Renee's attention from its drifting rejuvenation. Opening her eyes, she leaned forward slightly, just enough to peek over the edge of the roof. Down the long, long drop, she watched as the familiar shape of Matt's truck shuddered to a halt in his customary spot, and Renee smiled reflexively. Her smile widened as Matt's laughter, Dan's echoing rebuttal, and Allison's slapping interference filtered up the side of the building towards her.

They were home. Her friends were back. Quiet and aloneness was all well and good – sometimes even necessary – but Renee could never find it within herself to feel anything but warmth and fondness when she caught sight of her friends. Straightening, she drew her knees beneath her and scooted back a fraction, turning to leave.

Only to draw to a halt as she realised that she wasn't alone.

"Neil?"

Barely three feet behind and to the right of her, Neil sat with his knees drawn before him. His arms were hooked loosely around his shins and his head rocked back a little. His eyes were heavy lidded but not closed, not blotting out his surroundings with the careless abandon that Renee allowed herself. She understood that, the wariness that he held. Once, Renee had felt it too. It had taken years and an active effort to force herself into caring just a little less, to trusting just a little more. To have faith that her senses would catch an intrusion.

At his name, Neil's head turned fractionally in her direction. The blank detachment of his expression faded a little and he met her gaze. Without a word he nodded a greeting.

Sitting back on her heels, Renee regarded him. How long had he been sitting there? She hadn't heard him come up and… how? How hadn't she heard him? Try as she might, and proud of herself as she was for being able to lessen her ingrained wariness, Renee knew her ears weren't so easily untrained. So then how…?

Smiling, Renee folded her hands in her lap. "Did you need something from me?"

Blinking, Neil slowly shook his head. "No."

Of course not. Neil never did, not from Renee, and not even knowing that she – and hopefully he – considered them friends of one another these days. "Did you want to talk to someone, then? We're the only one's without class at the moment, isn't that right? Although, from the looks of it, Matt just pulled in -"

"No." Neil shook his head again, but his gaze remained fastened to her. "It's not that."

Renee cocked her head. "Then how can I help you?"

"Do I need to be looking for your help to be up here?"

With faint laughter, Renee smiled. "I suppose not." A beat of silence passed between them before Renee couldn't help but speak once more. "You didn't say anything."

"Hm?"

"When you came up here." Renee gestured to the rooftop door, propped open slightly by the wedge she'd brought up one of the first times she'd visited. The banging of the door as it danced in the wind had always made losing herself in quietude impossible. "I didn't even hear you."

Neil shrugged. "I didn't mean for you to."

"So you slipped up here without making even a whisper of noise?" At Neil's silence, Renee frowned curiously. "You know, not many people can do that."

"Do what?" Neil asked. "Be quiet? Yes, I've noticed."

The joke of sorts – was it a joke? – caught Renee off guard. Another huff of laughter slipped free before she could withhold it, and after a moment she let herself feel the amusement in chuckles that the wind couldn't quite hide. "I meant that I'm not really someone that can be crept up upon."

She didn't need to elaborate. One look at Neil and the unsympathetic yet wholly understanding expression he wore told her that much. He considered her for a moment before saying slowly, "I'm not really someone that's heard when I don't want to be."

Amusement died. For a moment, Renee could only regard Neil with the solemnity that quickly replaced it. Oh. Yes, that was right. She understood that just as much as Neil understood her own admission. Sometimes she could almost forget that Neil had been on the run, that he'd been forced to slink below the radar and had managed impossibly well for years. He had such a presence, and not only when he spoke, that it seemed an impossibility. Not only because of his scars that couldn't quite hide his striking face beneath. Not because of his colouring, his pale eyes that seemed almost luminescent in the right lighting, or because his height made him more rather than less noticeable.

Neil had a presence. Just like Andrew, perhaps. The kind of presence that a rabbit could detect when a fox slunk up behind it, unseen but nonetheless felt.

But Renee hadn't noticed him. Just like a rabbit, she hadn't seen or heard him. As a once-rabbit that considered herself something of a fox as well, it was perhaps a little impressive.

"Besides," Neil finally continued, and it was only then that Renee realised she'd let the silence hang between them, "you looked like you were enjoying yourself."

Eyebrows rising, Renee blinked silently for a moment before allowing herself a curious smile. "Enjoying myself?"

Neil pointed a finger at his chin. "Your face. It wasn't as covered as it usually is."

"Covered?" Renee asked, though she thought she knew what he meant before he shrugged again and continued.

"You don't ever let anyone see what you're thinking. It was unexpected to see you not trying to hide for once."

"So you figured you'd take the opportunity to watch?"

Neil nodded, unabashed, and Renee found she didn't want him to be. Of everyone with perhaps the exception of Andrew, she realised he was probably the one she cared the least about seeing her true colours. She wasn't ashamed of her past or who she used to be, but that didn't mean she wanted to embrace it either.

Chuckling again, Renee climbed to her feet. "This is about the only place I would do it, you know. When Andrew first showed me up here, he said it was as good a spot as any to let my guard down."

"He said that?" Neil asked.

"Yes. I got the impression he was speaking from experience."

Neil's expression grew considering and, as his gaze shifted to the edge of the roof at Renee's back, she fathomed he was seeing something quite different to the empty stretch before the fall.

"Were you looking for him?" As Neil's gaze flickered up to her, Renee clarified. "For Andrew."

"He was in class," Neil said.

"Waiting for him, then."

"It's cold up here. Why would I wait for him on a cold, empty rooftop?"

Renee didn't reply, only smiled and waited for him to elaborate this time. She found that such conversations between them often went such ways; when it came to Neil, he didn't like to be prodded but that didn't mean he didn't want to share. It was simply that there were only a fractional number of people he was prepared to share with. Renee considered herself a little blessed that she was one of them these days.

After a moment, Neil exhaled sharply. He spared a frowning glance over his shoulder before turning back to Renee. "You left the door open. I could feel the draft down by the dormitories." A beat followed, and Neil pursed his lips before continuing in a mutter. "They're driving me crazy."

"Who are?" Renee asked, though she thought she could guess.

"The kids." Neil regarded his left knuckles, the bruise he'd acquired barely a day before from not quite healed. "They're intolerable."

Renee swallowed a smile, though Neil's unimpressed glance suggested she didn't completely manage to hide it. The kids, he called them, just as Dan and Allison, Nicky and Matt, and even Kevin on occasion had taken to doing. Just as Andrew had coined the term for the freshmen and Neil had appropriated and spread like wildfire to the rest of the Foxes.

"They're the same age as you, aren't they?" Renee asked innocently.

"Theoretically, yes," Neil said, brushing a thumb over his grazes.

"And in reality?"

"Kids."

Renee didn't withhold her laugh this time. Stepping to Neil's side, she took a moment to gaze down at him, at the bruise colouring his knuckles. "It's been less than a year. They'll take a little more time, but I'm sure they'll get there."

"Nearly a year," Neil corrected. "A year of unnecessary drama and arrogant bullshit. If Jack opens his goddamn mouth to complain about Dan one more time…"

"I'm sure you're both more than capable of putting him in his place." Renee gestured at his hand pointedly. She didn't need to have seen the altercation to know where it had come from. Jack's cheek still bore the other side of it.

Neil made a flat sound that Renee couldn't get a read on. Lifting his gaze he stared out across the roof once more. "It shouldn't be my job to teach them how to be decent human beings and respect someone who is doing nothing but good things for them." His eyes flickered briefly up to Renee before darting away again. "They're just too blind to see reason."

A tingle of warmth passed through Renee, a distinct contrast to the chill of afternoon creeping across the rooftop. "I'm sure they'll learn," she said.

"I'm not."

"Well, if precedent dictates anything, Foxes had a way of turning themselves around."

This time, when Neil glanced up at her he held her gaze. He didn't say anything, however. Not a word, and the silence that surrounded him seemed to encapsulate him in a nearly visible bubble. This time, Renee wasn't as surprised by that silence as she had been barely minutes before with his silent arrival.

Starting for the stairwell, she paused within the doorway to turn a final glance over her shoulder. "It's nice up here, isn't it?" she said. "Peaceful. A good place to escape, I think. Andrew was definitely onto something when he first came up, don't you think?"

Neil didn't reply. He didn't turn towards her either, and though he was the only shape worth noting in the empty stretch of the rooftop, Renee found his stillness and silence somehow encouraged her gaze to slide right off of him.

Strange. Very strange. And yet definitely not as surprising as it had been before that afternoon.

Turning, she slipped back into the relative warmth of Fox Tower and left Neil to his quiet solitude. Somehow, she suspected that he would continue to surprise her with such insights no matter what. It was nothing remarkable, those little sights, but she would never fail to be amused that she'd missed something that, in hindsight, seemed so blatantly obvious.

* * *

The door eased closed and, with a twisting tug, Neil pulled it tight without a sound. He slipped down the stairs and paused at the bottom, listening for a moment for the sounds of the freshmen in their raucous enthusiasm where he'd left them over an hour before. Not all of them were intolerable, it was true, but sometimes the niggling, annoying parts of their juvenile cluster was more infuriating than others.

There was still noise. As he passed down the hallway, Neil identified the source of it through the crack of an open door. He glared at it as he passed, skirting around the line of sight that would immediately provoke the narrow-minded attention of delinquents that hadn't yet hauled themselves from their high school inferiority complex. So they had problems. So they didn't like to be told what to do. So fucking what? They would have to learn, but Neil was growing to hate that he appeared to be one of the few people appointed to teach them such lessons.

The sound of a television emanated from Matt, Nicky, and Aaron's room too, but Neil bypassed it without pausing. He made for the closed door of his own, easing it open as he darted a glance over his shoulder and down the length of the hallway for possible company to be sprung upon him when he least wanted it. Not unless it was the right sort of company, anyway. He was through the door and out of sight in an instant.

Andrew noticed his arrival, just as he always did. He had a sixth sense for that thing, as well as an unerring self-awareness that extended in an invisible radius around him. From the couch he spared a glance in Neil's direction, flicked a hand incrementally in the direction of the kitchen without explanation, and returned his gaze to the television. Kevin didn't look up from his laptop.

Crossing the room, Neil paused a step behind Kevin at the shot of the game on his screen. From the flash of coloured uniforms it appeared to be a Trojans match, which was far from surprising.

"We're not playing them this week," Neil pointed out.

Kevin jerked in his seat. Twisting in place, he swung his attention over the back of the couch. Neil watched his computer slipped dangerously towards the edge of his lap.

"Fucking hell," Kevin muttered, shaking his head. "A little warning next time."

Neil frowned. "What?"

Turning back to his laptop, Kevin waved a vague hand over his shoulder. "Announce yourself when you come in. Why do you always do that? It's uncanny."

Neil exchanged a glance with Andrew. He wouldn't have thought Kevin's words noteworthy had they not ridden on the back of his earlier discussion with Renee. It wasn't the first time he'd been told as much. Kevin could be particularly fixated at times, especially when it came to analysing plays on his computer. Neil had never considered his comments exceptional before.

And they still weren't. Not really. It wasn't like it was hard to be quiet, to step lightly enough that even creaks in floorboards weren't disturbed, the squeak of carpet unprovoked. It didn't take any particular practice – or at least Neil didn't think it did. It wasn't even as though he did it deliberately.

There were times when it paid off to be quiet, though. Times when it wasn't just beneficial but necessary. Times when a breath slightly too loud could mean the difference between escape and detection. It wasn't hard to slip unnoticed down a rowdy halfway, to pass unnoticed into a quiet room, in comparison to such pivotal moments. Not remarkable. Renee was just overly conscious of such things. Kevin just lacked awareness for anything that wasn't exy related.

Rounding the couch, Neil lowered himself onto the cushion a little along from Kevin. He ignored the frown Kevin shot him, gesturing at the screen. "That was Jean?"

Slowly, Kevin's disgruntlement faded, and he returned his attention to the game. "Yeah," he said. "He's… yeah. He fits in well."

Neil nodded. He didn't really care about how well Jean was settling beyond what level of threat he would pose when they faced one another on the court. He'd done his part a year before. The rest was up to Jean.

Instead he shifted in his seat to regard Kevin directly. "The first years are a mess. Still."

Kevin grunted, frowning at his laptop as he clicked it back into play.

"Kevin," Neil said.

"What?"

"They're a problem."

"So?"

"It's been months. We can't afford that kind of laxness this close to finals."

"_So_?"

"So sort it out."

Kevin shot him a sidelong glance. "You're the vice captain. You sort it out."

"They hero worship you, not me," Neil said.

"For reasons at present unknown," Andrew muttered. "Anyone would assume that upon meeting him they'd realise their idyllic dreams are misguided."

Kevin frowned at Andrew this time. "I don't have any obligation to meet their expectations of me."

"Glad to hear you have that much sense."

"Kevin," Neil said again, recalling his attention as Kevin's frown became a glare. "Be useful for once."

"They listen to you," Kevin said, hunching into his seat and returning his attention to his computer once more. "They just whine about it at the same time."

"Which the ones like Jack don't do for you. It makes life difficult if I have to fight them on everything."

"You can't cry pity-me when you all but throw down the gauntlet in every confrontation," Andrew said, sinking into his own seat further as he slung a leg over the arm. "Don't complain."

"Could you be any less helpful?" Neil asked.

"I could, yes."

Neil rolled his eyes. "Thank you for your contribution." He turned back to Kevin as he rose from the couch. "If the team remains as fractured as it is, we'll face real trouble in a few weeks. I'm not going to intimidate them into toeing the line. They're not Ravens."

"They'll do what they're told," Kevin said. "Continue doing what you're doing."

Neil scowled. "Your moral support is rousing." Turning, he stalked into the kitchen and tugged the door of the fridge open with more force than necessary. It wasn't until he'd straightened, twisting the lid off a water bottle, that he noticed Andrew had followed him. He was propped against the counter, as silent in his own movement as Kevin and Renee accused Neil of being.

After a moment of bored contemplation, Andrew tipped his chin and spoke. "They'll do what they're told. They've changed since they started. You just can't see it."

"It's impossible to see what isn't there," Neil said into a gulp of water.

Andrew's shrug was a lethargic effort. "You can't see it," he repeated, "but that's because you're the one who knows how much effort it takes to make them move. They will fall into line." He paused, gave another half-hearted shrug. "Eventually."

Then he turned and left the kitchen, wandering towards the bedroom. Shaking his head, Neil made to follow him, but he caught a glance of the time of the microwave as he passed and diverged briefly to pass behind Kevin.

"We're leaving in ten," he said, and frowned again as Kevin jolted and shot him a glare over his shoulder. "What?"

"I just said, don't _do _that," Kevin grumbled.

Neil raised an eyebrow, which only served to deepen Kevin's scowl. "Ten minutes," he repeated, then turned and followed Andrew into their room. Kevin's words didn't bother him. If anything, he thought he might be quite content to know that Kevin became spooked in his distractedness. He wasn't going to put in an ounce of effort in calling the freshmen into line? So be it. Neil didn't have to afford him the same consideration.

Having an unexpected route of one-upping was quietly satisfying. If Neil made an inch more effort in quietening his steps, could anyone really blame him?


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: Kevin's Studious Struggle**

Kevin's head hurt. He couldn't even tell at this point if it was from a headache or from the pressure of the heel of his palm propped against his face. Not that he'd lift his head from his hand if it was the cause; it was the only thing holding it up anymore.

Through the window above his desk was darkness, deep and slumbering, and the blackness of the grounds beyond was lit only intermittently by the campus lights dotted along perimeter road. Kevin had sat before it for hours, so long that he'd watched the sky fade from bright blue to orange and purple, to grey and then further. A hasty dinner after practice and then to his books.

He wasn't the only one of his team to do so but camaraderie was lost in the throes of exam stress.

Kevin had never been good at dealing with stress. Definitely not with school stress. Memorising gameplay and player statistics was one thing, but notes? Scribbles made in books that held little to no consistency or fluidity? Revising material he'd supposedly learned months before but only had a vague recollection of in the week before final exams?

Kevin had taken his credits and distinctions for granted when he'd been at the Nest. It was only stepping out the other side of their hive-mind approach to schooling that he realised just how much he'd relied upon the communal efforts of everyone on the team.

Squeezing his eyes closed, Kevin struggled to peel them open and reaffix his gaze onto his stack of notes. The lines and neat, slanted text he strove so hard to maintain through his lectures had long since blurred together, but Kevin nonetheless squinted and returned to reading and revising. And reading. And revising. And then reading that same line again because the words didn't make sense.

The prognosis of his exam the following day was looking increasingly grim.

Kevin didn't know what time it was. He couldn't have rightly said how long he'd been studying, nor the hour on the desk clock he'd deliberately turned away from himself. Plans flew out the window in the mad scramble to retain his grades, and sleep was – sleep was just an unnecessary, indulgent –

A light snapped on. Kevin started. Blinking rapidly, he glanced down at his notes that he hadn't realised had been lying unread on the desk before him for…how long? Minutes? Surely not longer. The possibility of longer than a minute or two was nauseating.

Glancing over his shoulder, Kevin squinted through the glare of the living room light. His blurry vision persisted for a moment or two before he could make out Neil standing at the wall alongside the switch. He held a mug in his hand that the lack of steam suggested was water rather than coffee.

Coffee. Maybe Kevin should get another coffee.

Scrubbing his eyes, Kevin opened his mouth to speak before letting the words die on his tongue. What was there even to be said? Don't creep up on him? Don't switch the light on in a room already swallowed by shadows but for the desk lamp hanging over Kevin's head? Slumping back in his seat, Kevin half turned back to his notes. What in God's name had possessed him to take physiology as a unit in the first place? All of his reasoning of its usefulness, its relevance, seemed meaningless now. If only Kevin hadn't made such a decision months before he could –

"Go to bed."

Glancing back towards Neil, Kevin frowned. He was still there? "What?"

Neil could pull a blank expression as well as Andrew most days, one that somehow nonetheless carried undertones of exasperation. "Go to bed, Kevin."

Kevin rubbed his eyes again, fingers digging into his eyes. "I'm studying."

"Clearly."

Kevin scowled through his fingers, but Neil appeared unfazed. "Go away."

"It's two in the morning."

"So?"

"Go to bed."

"I have an exam tomorrow."

Neil's finger tapped absently upon the rim of his mug. "I know. You've told me a dozen times today. Or yesterday now, since it's already Tuesday."

Kevin's glare narrowed. "Then go away and leave me in peace. You're distracting me."

"Because you were so focused beforehand?" Though Kevin didn't reply, kept his fingers pressed in his eyes, he could feel Neil's eyes narrowing. "Go to bed, Kevin."

Kevin glared into his hands. The demand, short, sharp, and practical, was too tempting, but at the same time, that Neil had said it at all hardened Kevin's willpower to deny the suggestion. No. He wouldn't go to bed. He wouldn't cave to such a simple request, not when it came from someone who didn't – someone who didn't even – who _couldn't _even –

"Leave me alone," Kevin grumbled, pressing the meat of his hands into his eyes until sparks appeared. "You might be content with scraping by with a bare minimum for your classes but I won't tolerate that. I've never… I'll never tolerate mediocrity."

"Not even when it doesn't count for anything?" Neil asked.

"Of course not," Kevin snapped, but he still didn't look towards Neil. "That's not the way the world works. You can't – you shouldn't pick and choose when to excel. You shouldn't half-arse everything, shouldn't simply allow –

"Is how the Ravens did it?"

Neil's words stopped Kevin cold. His own died on his tongue and he swallowed thickly.

The Ravens. Yes, they demanded perfection. They demanded the best, even if that best was only indicated through grade and number rather than less tangible evidence of knowledge and understanding. The same degree, the same assignments tweaked just enough to pass beneath a professor's shrewd eye without drawing notice, the same study schedule – it had been rigorous, but Kevin had always had direction. He'd always known he would pass. But now?

Kevin had never felt less confident in his schooling abilities in his life. Exy was one thing, the most important thing, but to flunk his studies? To be held back, or worse, to be suspended because he couldn't maintain peak performance in the classroom as well as on the court? Unacceptable.

Why the fuck had he chosen physiology?

Kevin didn't know, but he felt almost hopeless. He knew something, yes. Knew a little, it was true. Had read over his notes time and again, stuffing more words and diagrams between his ears than he'd hoped to obtain from the unit. But the confidence? It was nigh non-existent, and confidence, even in an exam, could make or break a player.

"Why are you doing this to yourself?"

Kevin twitched. He hadn't heard Neil approach him, taking a place so close to his side that his low murmur was clearly audible. Kevin withheld from giving him the benefit of a sidelong glance, keeping his hands clamped over his face. "Do what?" he said, thickening his words with resentment that he felt only too strongly in that moment.

"This." The crinkle of paper waved in the air made Kevin want to snap out a hand and snatch it away from Neil, but he withheld from that too. _Don't mess them up, don't mess up my notes, don't…_ He didn't say it, didn't voice the niggling fear that tightened his eyes further, but it was a near thing.

"My notes are perfect," Kevin said instead, because they were, even if he hadn't the level confidence in his academic abilities that he should have. "Every word lectured is included, every diagram copied, every –"

"It's a wall of text, is what it is," Neil muttered.

This time Kevin couldn't help but peel his hands away from his face and eye Neil sidelong. Neil wasn't looking at him, was regarding the notes held in one hand while he set down his neglected mug with the other. Kevin watched his eyes skim the lines, one of his eyebrows twitching higher with each passing moment.

"What?" Kevin said flatly.

"This is pointless. You're not going to learn anything from reading this, and definitely not this late at night."

Kevin narrowed his eyes. "Says the one who barely passed high school and is scraping by in college with a barely redeemable GPA –"

"I passed high school just fine, thank you," Neil said, not even giving Kevin the benefit of glancing away from the notes. "Considering I skipped nearly half of it all totalled and was running for my life for most of the rest, maybe you'll let me have this one." Laying the page down on Kevin's desk, he leaned over him as he reached absently for a pen. "As for college? I manage."

For a moment, Kevin was rendered speechless. He'd known about Neil being on the run but he'd never really considered its consequences in such a light. Half of high school missed? Kevin didn't regret his words, but it stilled his tongue for a moment nonetheless. Only for a moment, however, before Neil put pen to paper and Kevin almost yelped. He grabbed for his notes with frantic hands.

"Don't mess them up!"

Neil flipped notes neatly out of reach. "I'm not messing them up."

"Don't _mess them up_."

"I'm writing."

"You're going to – you'll write in the – the –" Kevin stuttered as his exhausted brain struggled for words that wouldn't come. "You don't even know how to –"

"Kevin," Neil said sharply, his voice a whiplash, "I've spent the majority of my life cramming for exams that I'd read barely a page about. Shut the fuck up for a second."

Kevin's tongue was heavy and as tired as the rest of him, and it was likely that as much as any defeat or leniency that gave Neil an opening to continue. For whatever reason, Neil took it immediately and lowered the pen once more. "This isn't going to help at all," he said, gesturing to a paragraph of Kevin's neat print that took up nearly the entire length of the page. "Do you actually remember any of this?"

Kevin, glaring at Neil with a shadow of the anger that was too weary too properly surface, flicked the paragraph a glance. Ah. That. "I… know it."

"Wow. You sound so confident."

"Shut up."

"Say it." At Kevin's pause, Neil tapped the paragraph outlining the in-depth sequence of the inflammatory process. "What's the point of writing it so densely if you can't retain any of it?"

"I need to know –"

"Do you?"

Kevin clenched his jaw. "You don't even take the unit."

"No, but I don't need to in order to know that they won't ask you the name of every preinflammatory cytokine –"

"It's proinflammatory."

"- that's listed in your textbook. It's ridiculous. Exams don't ask questions like that."

"You don't know that," Kevin began, then made another snatch for Neil's pen as he lowered it to the margin. Neil batted him away as he wrote.

"You've been studying this for three days straight, Kevin," he said, jotting down notes in the slanted scrawl that Kevin had cringed at the nearly illegible sight of for nearly two years straight. "Three days of staying up till three in the morning before getting up for practice."

"So?" Kevin demanded.

"So, it's slowing you down on the court."

"It is _not_ -"

"It is. If you weren't so tired you'd realise it. You're studying a lot but not effectively. Take a step back and work smarter, not harder." With a final full stop, Neil straightened and took half a step away from the desk. Gesturing at the paper, he held the pen out to Kevin. "I don't bet, but I'd almost be tempted to wager you won't need it any more in depth than that."

Kevin glared at him with a ferocity he knew would have left any of the freshmen Foxes quaking in their boots, but Neil didn't even blink. He folded his arms and waited as Kevin eyed him and didn't move until Kevin reluctantly turned towards the page.

"Stick to the bare minimum," Neil said. "The main steps of that inflammation pathway: damage, invasion, chemicals, blood cells. Then the healing part."

"You'd need to know them more in depth than that," Kevin said, though he couldn't help but stare down at the notes Neil had simplified. It was very reduced, and yet somehow…

"Invasion of infection," Neil said, picking up his mug. "You know that. You can remember it from that as being just bacteria or viruses and other crap, right? Makes sense."

Kevin grunted.

"Then the chemicals. The proteins. You wouldn't need any names."

"You can't just assume –"

"Then the blood cells – that's just the macro ones –"

"Macrophages."

"- the neutral one -"

"They're called neutrophils."

"- and the rest that aren't really relevant so much in this instance but you can remember that they at least start with B, E, and L so that should be good enough for MCQs. Just do the main ones. Macro and neutral. Don't make it more complicated. The blood vessels get wider, more blood comes in, then you get the symptoms or whatever, and you remember that Pain Has Even Less Red or some other word play to help you remember it."

Neil's words weren't making sense anymore. Not to Kevin's tired mind nor to his buzzing ears. They were recognisable but not in coming from Neil, who Kevin knew didn't know a lick of physiology beyond the basics gleaned from the gym. Not Neil, who somehow managed to spout his minimalised breakdown all from simply reading a page of dense text at two in the morning. Spouted words that understood and made sense, even if the situation didn't.

Except that last part. That made no sense at all.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Kevin asked.

Neil shrugged. "A phrase to help you remember what you wrote. Just make it up." He raised a hand from him mug, raised a finger, and began counting off the words. "Pain for the feeling of pain, obviously. Has for heat, then Even for edema, Less for loss of function, and Red for redness."

"Redness or erythema," Kevin muttered, staring at Neil's raised hand with five fingers raised by the end of his explanation. He blinked heavily. That was… it didn't make sense but it somehow sort of did. "You use mnemonics?"

"The word play?"

"A mnemonic," Kevin repeated. He glanced back down at his notes, and even though Neil's writing was blurring as much as Kevin's own, he felt just a little less groggy with the unexpected suggestion of Neil's words. "I don't use them because they miss out on so much but –" He glanced back to Neil. "You're remembering from… did you get that from my notes? You just made it up on the spot?"

Instead of answering him, Neil took a sip from his mug. "You always make life too hard for yourself, Kevin," Neil said, utterly ignoring the hypocrisy of his own words. "Take it from someone who learnt to cram as early as I could read: don't try to revise every tiny detail."

"But –"

"It won't work and you'll just waste time," Neil said, overriding him. "Dumb it down for yourself."

"I'm not going to 'dumb it –'"

"Cut out the complicated crap."

"I –"

"Use word play, acronyms, sing a fucking song, or stick post-it notes all over the walls if you need to. Don't drown yourself in textbooks, eat an apple instead of drinking so much coffee, and go to bed before you pass out at your desk. Again."

Eyebrows raised, Neil took another slow sip from his mug, holding Kevin's gaze over the rim as though daring him to object. Kevin could have. He almost did. But something about Neil's words stopped him. Maybe it was that he'd picked up the words and pieces of content from the page so easily, regurgitating it without a glance. Maybe it was that his words rung true, echoes of a past resorting to the most practical outlet presenting itself as a tried and true approach. Or maybe it was that, before Kevin's bone-weary exhaustion and head-throbbing tension, the fact that he'd appeared in the living room to speak to Kevin at all, to tell him to seek his bed, was too great a suggestion to pass.

Kevin rarely did what he was told. Not when he felt such actions weren't in his best interest. But Neil stared at him, blinking slowly and silently, and Kevin's shoulders slumped.

"I really hate you sometimes," he said, because he couldn't not say as much.

"Good for you," Neil said.

"I'm blaming you if I fail."

"If that's what makes you happy, but we both know your failure would be due to your own needless perseverance when your capacity for study has long since dried up."

Kevin would have liked to maintain his glare, but it took too much effort. His breath came out in a sigh. "Why are you still here?" he asked, hauling himself to his feet. Then, because he couldn't help but ask, "and why are you saying anything at all? Why do you even care?"

Neil didn't seem to need an explanation of what he referred to. Turning, he bypassed the kitchen to drop off his mug before heading for the hallway. "You're a perfectionist with a problem, Kevin," he said over his shoudle3r, "and it infects everything you do, even though your commitedness should only be for exy. And because of that, you're lagging."

"I'm not lagging," Kevin called after him, though he knew that Neil's words held a shade of the truth.

Neil must have heard his unspoken admittance given the knowing glance he shot Kevin's way. He didn't slow as he made for the bedroom and, with a heavy sigh and a final moment lost staring at his notes, Kevin trudged after him. Neil might be callous in some regards and far too keenly attentive in others, but in this instance, Kevin felt he could trust him. Maybe. To Kevin's surprise and for whatever reason, he actually seemed to know what he was doing. Actually seemed to have some degree of competency in his schooling that Kevin hadn't anticipated.

Perhaps he should have. After all, when it came to Neil, he'd survived so far without failing drastically in his classes and, more impressively, had deftly avoided getting himself killed. It wasn't so far-fetched that he might know some tricks to navigate the gruelling challenge of exams. Maybe Kevin would take a chance and listen to him just this once.

* * *

Neil was a dozen steps away from the lecture theatre by the time the door clicked shut behind him. Slinging rucksack over his shoulder, he drew his phone from his pocket and barely attended to the trudging river of students that flowed past him. Heavy steps, nervous jitters, some with eyes a little widened and jaws a little tightened.

Stress. Exam stress. As if it was any kind of real stress at all. Neil didn't thank his life on the run for much, but it had certainly given him thicker skin than most of the highly strung students around him. Seemed to possess. He couldn't fathom that something so trivial as an exam could provoke such sincere distress. It was… strange.

Keeping an eye on the floor, Neil tapped out a text. He rarely used his phone, even when his discomfort for it had waned, but sometimes it was easier to throw a question into a network than wander aimlessly across campus. Down a hallway, around a corner, shouldering through a door –

_Where are you?_

The text had barely been sent before he felt a hand run lightly across his back. The light yet firm pressure, distinctive of Andrew even before Neil glanced over his shoulder towards him. Surprising or not, Neil wondered if he would ever be relieved of the momentary shiver it induced.

"Done?" he asked, slowing only briefly for Andrew to fall into step alongside him before lengthening his stride once more.

Andrew's blink in reply spoke volumes. "Are you assuming I'd skip?"

Neil shrugged. "I wouldn't put it past you."

"And waste a semester of classes and pointless lectures?"

"Did you actually go to your lectures this semester then?"

Andrew didn't reply with words this time, sparing only a barely perceivable roll of his eyes as his hand finally lowered from Neil's back. It didn't go far, though; with every step he took falling alongside Neil his arm brushed and caught upon Neil's jacket. The hallways and grounds weren't quite packed enough to necessitate such proximity, but Neil wasn't one to complain if it came from Andrew.

"Kevin's likely having a mental breakdown at this point," Andrew said as they walked.

Neil shrugged again. "Unlikely. He'll probably be fine."

Andrew eyed him sidelong as they wove through the halls. Outdoors, across a stretch of open grounds, then back indoors again. "Why the unexpected show of faith?"

"Unexpected maybe. But I feel like it's valid nonetheless."

"How so?"

"He's done it before for different subjects. He can do it again for this one." Neil scooted to the wall to allow a flood of babbling students to pass. "So what if he's a nervous wreck before an exam? He is before every other game and he performs well in spite of it."

Andrew only grunted in reply, and Neil didn't push the subject further. Kevin was intelligent, he knew, and even if his genius manifested on an exy court it didn't mean that such intelligence wasn't also reflected in other areas. Andrew called it faith with a tinge of derision. Neil thought it more likely that it was a logical conclusion.

When Andrew planted himself alongside the wall of a lecture room that looked vaguely familiar, arms folded and silently waiting, Neil took his place alongside him. The corridor was scattered with students awaiting their own upcoming exams, books and notes spread across laps in a last ditch-effort to stuff a year's worth of knowledge between their ears as though they were actually pouring into a funnel rather than dribbling the information uselessly onto the ground. Neil had never understood such a mentality. Cramming was one thing, and a thing he'd long ago perfected as a by-product of his lack of time and care for school, but this?

There were certain ways to cram. Certain methods to employ that were most successful. It baffled Neil that the students around him - that Kevin too - hadn't figured them out yet.

Not that he would comment on the deficiency in logic. He waited in silence, gazing but barely seeing the students around him. Andrew stood just as silently at his side.

When the doors to the lecture hall swung open, a stream of haggard students spilled forth. Mutters of commiseration were exchanged, and more than one face winced with the lingering effects of the exam paper's blow. Kevin was one of the last through the door, and Neil wasn't surprised when he appeared notably less fazed than those around him.

"Told you," Neil said absently.

"Oh, was this a bet?" Andrew replied.

"No. But perhaps I should have made it one."

"You don't bet."

"Maybe I should when it comes to Kevin. He's so predictable."

"What was that?" Kevin asked as he approached them. He glanced between Neil and Andrew and frowned as neither replied. Despite his apparent disgruntlement, he discarded their silence easily enough. It was as much confirmation of his satisfaction with his performance as anything.

"Shouldn't you both be getting ready for practice?" he asked instead, stepping between and through them to lead the way back down the hall. "What're you doing waiting around here?"

"It's like he really doesn't know," Neil said absently. How anyone could be so blind to the impression of distress they radiated he didn't know.

"Again, too much faith," Andrew said.

"What's that?" Kevin asked, glancing over his shoulder.

"I didn't say I had faith in his perceptiveness," Neil said. "That's another bet entirely."

Kevin's frown returned and deepened. "My perceptiveness? Says the one who has the least self-awareness in social situations of anyone on the team? Hypocrisy isn't becoming, Neil."

Even without understanding, Kevin dove straight into the attack. Typical of a striker, and even more typical of Kevin these days. What had happened to the downtrodden, defeated man he'd been the year before? Neil almost wouldn't have believed it had he not been there for their numerous Raven confrontations.

"He has a point," Andrew murmured so quietly Neil barely heard him. "Can't argue with that."

"He wasn't asking you to," Neil said, shooting Andrew a frown of his own. "You don't need to immediately jump onto his train of thought."

"Oh, I know. Who's to say it's his train in the first place? I'm the one in the driver's seat."

Neil rolled his eyes. "Why am I not surprised you'd take charge in a driving analogy?"

"Because you're clearly immune to surprises today."

"I don't like surprises."

"Clearly. It's known about you by just about everyone in your vicinity." Andrew spoke low enough that anyone passing them likely wouldn't have heard but the unspoken prodding was apparent to Neil's ears. "It's likely why you wouldn't be caught unawares by an exam springing up at the very beginning of exam period. Like Kevin."

Kevin shot him another frown that was more of a glare, but Andrew ignored it just as easily as he had Neil's. Annoyance and frustration had always washed off of him like water from a duck's back. Still, Neil was happy to allow him to be the focus of Kevin's resentment once more.

When he thought about it, though, following in step with Andrew as Kevin led them across campus to the parking lot, he supposed Andrew was probably right. Neil crammed but it was calculated. He didn't like surprises, so he did his utmost to ensure they didn't happen. Whether it was an exam or a raid upon the house he was squatting in, Neil couldn't remember a time when he hadn't thought in such a way.

He no longer needed to squat, nor prepare for the worst in a battle of firearms or flighty escape, but some things appeared to unshakeable nonetheless. Neil simply hadn't anticipated that such habits would become useful in his liberated life. Apparently there were still some revelations he hadn't prepared himself for, albeit far less dangerous than those of the past. The realisation was oddly comfortable.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: Andrew In Transit**

Smoking was forbidden on the court. Supposedly.

As Andrew plucked the shortening stub from his lips, he could almost hear Wymack's long-suffering reprimand and see Dan's disappointment that so often involved a scowl and a sharp word. He could almost feel Kevin's radiating fury that bubbled and boiled until it spilled over the edge into a grumbling, "Have a little respect, would you?"

"For?" Andrew would always ask.

"For the court." At Andrew's usual lack of agreement and compliance, the muttered, "then at least for your lungs. You'll walk yourself into an early grave that way," always followed.

Andrew didn't know about that. He couldn't say that he cared all that much, although 'much' was slightly more than it had been in years gone by. Maybe. Possibly. Not much, and certainly not enough to inspire action, but yes. More. Regarding the burning cigarette between his fingers, the pale wisps coiling in artful tendrils before dissipating into nothingness, Andrew supposed he could admit that the suggestion was just a little more convincing than it had once been.

Stubbing the glowing end onto the goal post, Andrew tucked the remaining half of the cigarette into his pocket and released a final breath of smoke. Tipping his head back, he raised his gaze to the open ceiling, to the blackness stretching beyond the glowing radiance of the court. Barely more than a handful of the court's lights were on, but it was enough to swallow any hint of the stars that struggled to escape the night sky.

It was quiet. Resoundingly quiet in the stadium that was only ever thick with clamouring fans and wailing bodies or drained of any but the handful of a team that made up the Foxes, all intent and focused, training beneath the heavy gaze of their coach and captain. Or vice captain these days as Dan had begun to take a step back more and more deliberately. The season hadn't yet concluded, the Fox's games still a recurrent, manic smear upon a cluttered week, and Dan maintained her grounded stance at their head on each and every game night, but otherwise? Where it counted a little less?

Closing his eyes briefly, Andrew almost snorted aloud at the direction his thoughts had drifted. Not only to Neil – such a thing happened so often these days that he didn't even pretend to deny it to himself – but to exy. To the game. What had been and often still was a burden and leech upon his time and energy had dug in its roots and pervaded his system. Whether against his will or otherwise, Andrew hadn't a hope of stopping the progression anymore. To kill it and extract it would be to take out too much of his own flesh.

Andrew was stuck with it. For better or worse, he was infected. The symptoms of that infection were the only reason he could conjure as to what could possibly have urged him to seek the court that night.

For once, Kevin was preoccupied. It was a blue moon rarity that had him distracted on a week night, consumed with whatever else chewed through his time and forbade him from racing with obsessed footsteps from Fox Tower. Without Kevin the rest of the Foxes that attended in sporadic bursts of commitment took their leave. It was as though his temporary laxness afforded permission.

So why had Andrew come?

He didn't practice. If anyone asked, he'd blame his immobility on hatred of the sport, or his supposedly failing lungs, or the lack of Kevin's obsession cracking a whip in the air with such frustrating regularity that it was simply easier to abide his wishes half of the time. But it wasn't any of that. Not really. If anyone asked, Andrew wouldn't be able to tell them, just as he couldn't explain what had brought him there in the first place. It was why he spent hours – had it been hours? – seated in the square boundaries of the goalpost lost in thought and only shaken from those thoughts when the ash of his cigarette dropped a searing sprinkle of onto his skin.

Lowering his gaze from the empty sky, Andrew rubbed absently at lingering prickle of the burn. It barely hurt, and the sting had long since faded. What remained instead was the dust of ash scattered around him in a coating thin enough that none but another goalie would notice the mess. With a half-hearted swipe of his hand, Andrew scattered the specks, smearing them across the floor into thinner streaks, before hauling himself to his feet.

He should probably return. There was no obligation to, but yes, he should return – to the Tower, to his family, to his bed. No obligation from anyone but himself, and it was that which had Andrew turning towards the court door and starting a slow, wandering exit. He idly pulled his phone from his pocket and was faintly surprised when the glowing screen indicated the time inching towards pre-dawn.

Not that it really mattered. Andrew's hours lost in thought had been as restful as sleep was most nights. What was of greater relevance was that Neil had accompanied him and, being the person he was, Neil wouldn't have left had it killed him to tay.

It didn't surprise Andrew when he saw him in the stands. It didn't surprise him that he would decide to stay, that he would even if had Andrew only denied the necessity of his presence. Andrew had become almost used to it, and that acceptance was more curious than any other consideration on the matter. Or it was until, pausing in the doorway and raising his gaze to scan the rows of orange, Andrew caught sight of where Neil sat.

Or lay, as was more accurate. Wedged. Curled, even, because there was no way that a fully-grown man could do anything otherwise in the stadium seats. At the front row, the coach and players row positioned directly behind the court door, Neil was folded upon himself in a position that couldn't have been comfortable even had he been packed in with bubble wrap. A leg was hooked over the metal arm of the seat, the other thrust underneath it and twisted to dangle off the edge at an angle uncomfortable to even look at. His arms were just as contorted, woven into a nest around his head and neck where he's pillowed himself on one arm, his back hunched and tucked in upon himself. It took Andrew a moment to realise that his own jacket had been appropriated as feeble padding for Neil's head, but even that slight allowance wouldn't have made him comfortable. Not in the least.

Yet he was asleep. Fast asleep and bearing the kind of smooth abandon in his expression that bespoke a long-term commitment to his state of unconsciousness.

Easing the heavy door closed behind him, Andrew paused at the end of Neil's row. He regarded him, contemplated, and raised a foot to nudge Neil awake. Only to pause again with his shoe barely an inch or two off the ground. Considering, he eyed Neil in his twisted sleep and slowly lowered his foot once more.

Neil could sleep anywhere; that much Andrew had discovered on multiple occasions. The library, sprawled across a table. The poor excuse for a couch that the girls kept despite it feeling as rock hard as a church pew. The locker room bench for a brief cat nap, the back of a classroom despite the chatter, an aeroplane with the engine blaring and the threat of hundreds of miles beneath them. Andrew's bed too, as Andrew found himself sharing more often than not to only rare a complaint. Any and all would find Neil taking the opportunity should it present itself, and each instance would be a quick descent into sleep and an equally fast return with the snap of a pair of fingers.

Andrew understood that. The jerk of wakefulness, the ability – no, the _need_ to be aware even during sleep and to alert himself to anything and everything of threat or importance in an instant. The ability to override weariness and the blessing of mindless oblivion was a lifesaver. Whether it was the muffled tread of an unshod foot outside his door or the murmured askance of a cousin, a brother, from a hand's breadth away, Andrew would and could awaken when he needed to. Nothing, not even desperate exhaustion, would override such instinctive necessity.

Neil was the same. He would take any opportunity to sleep, and at the whisper of his name would wake him. Too aware, Andrew would call him, if he didn't relate so completely. Too aware by half.

As such, it was always something of a fascination to Andrew when he caught him in the brief moments of uninterrupted stasis. It was in those few moments, seconds or minutes of even hours where it wasn't a deliberate choice but happenstance, that Neil lowered the guards placed upon his expression. That the reigning in of his tongue, kept on a leash only with reluctance, was loose and unresisting and his jaw slackened. Fascinating… and enough that Andrew's disgruntlement at lingering even later at the court than they already were was effectively vanquished.

Reaching a hand towards Neil, he couldn't catch himself before his fingers caught in the curl on Neil's forehead, flicking it aside. His clasp lingered for a moment, just a moment coiled in hair as a flicker of a frown crossed Neil's brow, before he let it go. As he did, Neil twitched slightly, his chin tucking slightly as he hunched further upon himself.

Andrew shoved his wayward hand into his pocket before it could undermine him again, but he didn't depart the scene. He didn't turn on his heel and stalk towards the locker room, cursing himself for taking an opportunity that presented itself. Stepping silently up the stairs, he dropped into the row above Neil's and into a slouch. For a moment, shifting and adjusting to get comfortable, Andrew gazed upon Neil in his awkward recline, the curl of his eyelashes and the faint downturn of his lips, before his eyes drifted briefly back to the court.

The wide, empty court. The goals that were his. There was Renee too of course, but they were _his_. And for the moment, no one else would touch them. Not even with their eyes.

Gaze shifting back to Neil as he shifted, rolling slightly in Andrew's direction as though he felt his presence, Andrew snorted. He wasn't sure if his self-deprecation was for his attention to Neil, to the court, or because of the faint yet noticeable twinge in his chest that he couldn't quite pinpoint the nature of. Maybe it was for all three.

With a shake of his head, Andrew closed his eyes. It was uncomfortable in the seat, so uncomfortable that he doubted he'd be able to sleep himself, but it wasn't worth moving. Not worth waking Neil or leaving the court. For the moment, Andrew would be content.

* * *

When Neil woke, it was to the protestation of a twinge in his neck and an accompanying grumble of his back as he rolled over. Further aches followed, and as Neil retrieved his legs from where they were stretched, shuffling upright and propping his arms behind him, he scratched his memories for the where and the why. Somewhere uncomfortable, certainly. Uncomfortable, and definitely not a bed. Neil had slept on too many not-beds to be unable to recognise the rude awakening in an instant.

Blinking, squinting, he peered up at the sky overhead. The unfiltered sky, with a grey dawn shining feeble luminescence upon him. Raising a hand to his neck, he glanced around himself and felt a moment of surprise when he took in the courts.

The empty courts. The stretch of alternating orange and white seats. The plexiglass, dull in the grey morning light, the court matte rather than shiny, and the door firmly shut just as Wymack had left it the previous evening when they'd finished practice. Just as Andrew had left it when he'd descended to the court alone, tugging it closed behind him to slouch towards the goals as though he weren't stepping along the well-worn path of his own volition for the first time.

A part of Neil still couldn't believe Andrew had done it. He'd known he would eventually because even Andrew couldn't resist the inevitable, but a part of him had been sceptical. A larger part than he'd anticipated, evidently. Hands dropping into his lap, Neil glanced around himself in search. He wouldn't have been surprised had Andrew left him behind when he'd finished whatever he'd been doing, just as he wouldn't have been surprised to be kicked awake by a silent, tired foot attached to a silent, tired body that complained of a need to leave the court behind them.

A glance behind him found neither of those eventualities.

Andrew was seated in the row directly above Neil's. Seated upright only, that was, and slouched with discomfort in every line of his body. Even his face bore a disgruntled frown; not angry but clearly dissatisfied, as if even his unconscious body wanted the world to know just how disappointed it was in its lack of accommodation for his sleeping arrangement. His arms were folded across his chest, his chin tucked, and his legs kicked before his and crossed at the heels, stretched towards but not quite touching the back of Neil's chair.

It was enough to almost make Neil smile. Not because of Andrew's obvious discomfort but because he was there at all. Sometimes Neil still didn't expect it.

Slinging an arm across the back of his chair, his chin resting on top of it, Neil folded his knees on the hard plastic seat beneath him. Regarding up at Andrew, he allowed himself to simply stare for a time. Stare for a long time, even. With morning light filtering through the open ceiling, grey dawn fading to be replaced by a warm glow, Andrew's hair was cast into a faintly glowing crown atop his head. The shadows were accentuated in the lines of his face, the finer hairs of his eyebrows made nearly invisible, and the incessant downturned tug of his lips softened just slightly.

Morning was infamous for being unforgiving of the previous night's secrets, but sometimes Neil didn't mind it all that much.

How long he sat in still, silent watch Neil didn't know. How long he would have continued to sit was just as unknown; there was nowhere Neil needed to be, nothing that would necessitate Andrew's awakening, and he had no particular desire to leave the stadium. His seat wasn't the most comfortable he'd ever sat in but it was far from being the worst. He'd slept on little more than cement floor and a jacket folded into a pillow before, had spent nights so uncomfortable that he couldn't sleep at all. A plastic chair and cold metal arms inhibiting any attempts at properly stretching out were nothing.

Neil could have remained as he was but others clearly had different plans for the morning.

His phone buzzed, a low hum from his bag three seats down. Nicky, Neil would guess, or possibly even Kevin wondering at their absence. It was barely audible, but Neil glanced sidelong immediately and wasn't surprised when Andrew shifted in his sleep. He could endure Wymack's rousing speeches or an hours-long bus ride, but in the silence of the stands and empty stadium any sound was an alarm.

Neil understood that too. There were certain circumstances, certain triggers, that he would always be aware of.

Andrew's stirring wasn't a snap to attention. Not that morning and not when it wasn't necessary. As Neil watched, Andrew's eyes opened a fraction and, like a ripple effect, his usual wakeful alertness settled with a hint of tension upon his shoulders. Not an angry or agitated or aggressive tension, but sharp and unwavering nonetheless. He eased into awareness with slow blinks, gaze shifting towards Neil.

Neil blinked a silent greeting in return. For a moment, Andrew didn't reply. Then he straightened in his seat.

"You're awake."

Neil nodded slightly.

"I didn't notice."

Neil hitched a shoulder. It was slightly uncomfortable in his position, but he wasn't yet inclined to break the quiet that was empty of all but Andrew's low murmur.

"You do that," Andrew said slowly. "Sometimes."

There was a question beneath his words. A question that it didn't take Neil long to unravel. Oh. That. "I didn't expect it to be a surprise at this point that I can, in fact, be quiet."

Andrew grunted. He shifted slightly, and for a moment Neil thought he might rise, might make for the exit in a belated attempt to clear the scene following what was already imprinted in Neil's memory with unerring permanency. But he didn't. Instead, after a moment of straightening, the effort seemed to be too much for him and he flopped sideways, all but draping himself over the arm of his chair.

"Tired?" Neil guessed.

"What happened to your capacity for silence?"

"Just because I can be quiet doesn't mean I have to be."

Andrew frowned but there was no heat to the expression. From his awkward recline, he reached a single hand towards Neil and poised it just before his lips. Neil waited. He didn't move as Andrew's finger pressed gently, rested for a moment, then trailed down to his chin. Not as his hand rose slightly up his cheek, trailing across and feather light across his skin, and pausing at the corner of his eye. Neil didn't move but to close his eyes as Andrew's raised hand hung, unmoving, fingers resting almost gently.

It wasn't much. Wasn't anything special. But it felt… nice.

Neil could have remained suspended in stillness for the rest of the morning – for longer, even – and would have beyond Andrew finally lowering his hand to rest atop Neil's propped arm. His fingers were so close Neil could feel the warmth of them on the side of his face.

"You're tired," Andrew said at length. His voice was a low murmur.

"Not really," Neil replied.

"You're lying."

With only a single eye cracked open, Andrew regarded Neil sidelong. If anything, he looked to be the more tired of the two of them. Even bathed in increasingly bright morning light, awash with golden warmth, shadows hung beneath his eyes. Neil had long ago suspected they were permanent.

"Minimal sleep isn't impossible to work with," Neil said.

"I know," Andrew said, because he did. Of course he did.

"I'd almost be willing to bet that I got more than you did last night."

"That wouldn't be hard."

Neil tipped his head into Andrew's hand where it curled along his face. "Hm?"

Andrew gestured with his other in a vague wave at the seats. "Your choice of sleeping quarters is dismal."

"You didn't have to sleep here."

"Neither did you."

"You could have woken me up."

Andrew flicked Neil's cheek, a reprimand that felt like a kindness for the words it left unsaid. The ensuing touches, gentle prods so light they were barely felt, only added to the impression.

"I've slept on worse," Neil said.

"I know," Andrew replied.

"I'm sure you have too."

"The difference is that I have no interest in pursuing the least comfortable bed possible." A pause and then, "what was the worst?"

Neil almost smiled again. It was a rare moment that Andrew asked a question with so little prompting. With such careless curiosity. Once, Neil knew he wouldn't have understood such carelessness for the interest that it was. "The worst?"

"Mm."

Neil considered, resting his head a little more against Andrew's hand as he let his gaze drift. "The worst," he said slowly. "Probably a bathroom cabinet."

Andrew's fingers stilled where they had been prodding. "When?"

"A long time ago."

"Baltimore?"

Neil nodded. "Not my fondest memory."

"Did you actually sleep?"

"Maybe. I think I got a few minutes here and there. The water pipe next to me was too hot to be comfortable though. Fall asleep against it and you'd end up burning yourself."

Andrew's hand shifted, fingers pressing lightly on said elbow. The memory had long ago faded but it never left Neil completely. "Mom put me in there," he said. "My father was on a rampage. A mole, I think it was, but I can't be sure. He tended to do that."

Andrew didn't speak.

"You get used to it after a while. Making do with wherever you can close your eyes."

Nothing.

"You're the same."

Andrew blinked slowly, his gaze meeting Neil's. There was silent acknowledgement in his stare, the kind that Neil had seen countless times and recognised for what it was. That their pasts weren't the same but that they were reflective. That they didn't have identical experiences, but they could understand at least in part because pain was relative.

Neil wasn't glad for that fact. He saw red when he thought of both of their pasts, though less commonly his own. But there was that much at least, and even begrudging, he accepted their common ground. He let the past lay untouched because it was simpler and easier that way. That, and –

"You came to the court."

Neil had known he was playing with fire by verbalising it, but he still could have laughed as Andrew's eyes narrowed. He didn't, because Andrew's hand remained where it was rested against his cheek. It still remained as Neil turned his head and, just briefly, just lightly, pressed a kiss to his knuckles.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

"It wasn't for you," Andrew said.

"I know."

"Don't expect anything to come of it."

"I won't."

"And if you fall to sleep here again, I'll leave you."

Neil didn't point out the juxtaposition of Andrew's words. He wouldn't tempt fate in this instance. Not when it was something that truly mattered and could risk overstepping the distance that Andrew had come. Instead, he tucked his knees a little more comfortably beneath him and held his tongue.

And he smiled. He knew Andrew didn't need words to know what his actions meant. Lying as he was, staring as he was, even if he didn't smile in return, he didn't call Neil out on his unspoken delight. He didn't withdraw his hand or roll away from him, and it spoke more words than he would ever utter aloud. More than Neil could or would say too.

There were certain things, certain moments, and certain gestures that meant far more than words. Andrew had his own language, and it was one that Neil found himself understanding perfectly.


End file.
